


Sinnerman

by viklikesfic (v_angelique)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst, Blood, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fear Play, First Time, Hypnotism, Kissing, Knifeplay, M/M, Magic-Users, Magical Realism, Mild Daddy Kink, Mind Control, Ownership, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Rough Sex, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:19:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2520521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v_angelique/pseuds/viklikesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where some of the population has magical abilities, John finds his own becoming a target of the government when he acts to protect Sherlock. The last place he expects to find a safe haven, though, is in the home of James Moriarty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Is this long enough that y’all won’t kill me for posting yet another WIP? Gosh, I hope so! In a way, this can be read as a standalone. I promise that I am working on all my other stories, I just haven’t quite been able to get any of them to another chapter break. I’ve been working on this one for a year and a half, so I just really want to share the first chapter.

_Oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to? Sinnerman where you gonna run to?_   
_Sinnerman where you gonna run to? All ‘long dem day_

 

The case that would ultimately change John Watson's life started out more-or-less within the realm of normality, at least for those who hang around Sherlock Holmes, which admittedly wasn't saying much. But it seemed rather straightforward when Mycroft brought it to them. An issue with a possible rogue agent within MI5, and when no one could figure out who exactly Mycroft brought it to Sherlock. Sherlock took the case because it was complicated enough to be interesting, and John wasn't actually involved with much of it until it came to the wet work of tracking the man down and cornering him in an alley.

"I would advise you to drop your weapon," Sherlock declares, utterly calm. John doesn't understand how he can be that way, hands tucked casually in his trouser pockets, when a highly dangerous member of a British intelligence agency has a gun aimed at his head. But Sherlock always has a plan, and so John just focuses on keeping his aim steady, keeping his own gun up. "My man is very good." 

The agent laughs and jerks his chin in John's direction. "You'd do better with a sniper."

"Why? 've you got one?" Silence. Sherlock smiles. "Didn't think so. You're very relaxed for a dead man."

"Cute. Are you trying to negotiate? You don't have anything I want."

"No. I suppose I don't. But it might make it a little easier for you, when you meet my brother."

The man just laughs. "I've met your brother," he says. "You don't know a thing." And then John sees it, the hair's movement of the trigger finger, and he dives. Instinct tells him the gun won't help—even if his shot's accurate it will mean two men dead in this alley rather than one. The flying tackle brings the man down, forces his shot high, but with the impact there's a sickening crack and when John checks, a thready pulse that fades to nothing before he can intervene. Sherlock's staring at him like he's never seen John before.

"Christ.  That was ten feet," he murmurs, looking from where John lies on top of a dead man to the point where he'd been standing a moment ago. "I knew you were good, but..."

"Shut it," John mutters, pushing himself to his feet and glaring at the fresh corpse. "Am I going to have trouble with Mycroft?"

"Well, I'd imagine so, as he did want us to bring Cobbs in alive, but...  _John._ "

"Let's not talk about it," John mutters. "I don't need it known that I was 'using' in a fight," he says, making air quotes. He hates the term himself, with its connotations of drug use and cheating, but it's what a court will say if his use of the magic that comes naturally to him is found to have been improper in causing a man's death, if John himself is classified dangerous. It's the term he himself uses in the paperwork for his twice-monthly magic-policing rounds.

In truth, it's more nuanced than that. Whereas non-imbued people, people like Sherlock, might learn to use magic seeking pleasure or darker purposes, those who are magically imbued hardly have a choice. The ability is innate, part of who they are. Though the term imbued is used now to emphasize their humanity and the harmlessness of magic as an additional trait, some of the elderly still use the term Elementals to describe themselves and others like John. Some still consider them a separate race due to the magic living inside them.

"It'll be fine. It was a defensive maneuver, I'd testify that you didn't intend the blow to be fatal but, John,  _why_? Why didn't you tell me?" Sherlock grabs John's shoulders and he frowns.

"I wasn't keeping secrets," John argues. "Physical dexterity is my dominant trait, you knew that."

"I knew that you could run fast and sense things a bit better than the average person, John, you just leapt ten feet from a standing start and killed a man."

"Sherlock.  We're finished here."

Sherlock watches him a moment, obviously not dropping it entirely but coming to the conclusion that his curiosity will keep. "Fine. I'll text Mycroft for the cleanup crew."

~*~

Whatever Sherlock said, it was evidently enough. John's relieved that it was one of Mycroft's shady national security cases, rather than something they were working for the Yard, because there's no need for an official statement. Accustomed as John is to glossing over his magical abilities, he still doesn't want to talk about them in depth with the police, especially not in the context of a crime.

His life carries on within the bounds of relative normal for the next two-and-a-half months, alternating his medical work with the cases, trying not to crack Sherlock over the head for using up all the milk at a frankly alarming rate. Twice a month, he does his rounds as part of London's volunteer magical policing squad, patrolling the city for magic users working outside the parameters of government-established rules. He likes the group he works with regularly, other imbued people with fairly mundane talents and a background in some sort of law enforcement or security work. Perhaps none of them are strictly volunteering—the squad is suggested to magically imbued people with this sort of background fairly forcefully—but it's not awful. Since leaving the Army, John's mostly found himself doing quiet night rounds, occasionally catching some villain in the act of using his or her magic in a particularly destructive way. He's willing to look the other way once these people are handed over, because in all the cases he's dealt with at least they were genuinely destructive characters. He doesn't condone using magic to hurt people, even as he keeps his own abilities largely under wraps.

Thus it's completely unexpected, for John, when he learns that the jig is up. Sherlock is gone—he realizes later that it's no coincidence; if John's being apprehended on the basis of intelligence from that night then Mycroft's behind it and Mycroft knows he'd have trouble if John didn't come home to Sherlock after his rounds—and thus there's no one to contact for help when he realizes what's happening. Keira looks particularly sympathetic as she flanks his left, Topher on the right and Malcolm approaching him from the front as he cuts through an alley on the way home.

"I'm sorry, John," Keira murmurs. “We’re here to inform you that you’re under arrest for using magic with deadly force. This will be easy if you don't fight. The bureau is aware of your past service."

_Well, that's bullshit_ , he knows despite her sweet tone. Past service or not, he killed a man using magic, and he doesn't actually know of anyone who's done so and ever seen the light of day again. Her wording is the kind of placating crap they always say to people they're apprehending to keep them calm, and right now John doesn't _want_ to be calm. Perhaps it's exaggerated, the whispers of what the government does to those marked _dangerous_ , but John would rather not find out. And so, surrounded by his team, he quickly scans the environment, runs through their collective abilities in his head, and _jumps_.

It's indecent how wide he grins as he hightails it along the rooftops, looking for cover. He doesn't have Sherlock's mental map of London, nor does he have a destination in mind, but there's something exhilarating about just letting his full degree of physical magic support his fragile body, propelling him across rooftops and over obstacles. His energy is limited—these skills are made more for a quick fight than a marathon run—but it's a taste of freedom at least before they catch him. None of the other members of his team have an ability related to speed, which means they've called it in. He hears sirens below and he's pausing on one side of a heating unit, trying to weigh his options, when he hears and then sees a black helicopter. Oddly, as he ducks for cover, the helicopter doesn't fire, nor does it try to land on the rooftop. He's about to make another run for it when he hears his name from a bullhorn, shouted over the thunder of the rotors. 

"Captain Watson!"

Captain, not Doctor. The helicopter banks, his hesitation putting him within its sights, but still no one fires. A rope drops onto the roof a few feet away. 

"Watson! Grab the rope, dumbarse!"

For a second, John thinks he heard that wrong, but then he recognizes the figure standing in the open door of the 'copter, the man who let down the rope. Holy shit, is he lucky tonight. 

John grabs the rope and wraps it a few times around his waist before locking it off with a solid knot, then thrusts a thumb up before his feet leave solid ground. The wind is heavy up here, but John's just fucking relieved, especially when they clear the building and he sees a group of men bursting out onto its roof, just out of range. He doesn't have time to think about _why_  Colonel Sebastian Moran, an officer he hasn't seen since Afghanistan who isn't imbued as far as John knows, is saving his arse from being taken in for magical crimes in an unmarked helicopter, and frankly he doesn't care. They go a short distance before he's let down onto a fairly nondescript street, and then Moran belays down behind him, the helicopter banking and heading away from the river.

"The fuck?!" John's grinning, full of adrenaline and a bit shaky on his legs, when he holds his arms out and gives Moran a hard hug, slapping his back.

"Long story." Moran's always been short and quick to business, though he does allow John a small smile. "Car." He points a key fob at a silver Audi and the lights flash. "Get in. You're not clear yet."

John wants to complain that it's a bit excessive when they make three changes of vehicle before finally arriving at their destination, a posh-looking house out beyond London, but Moran doesn't seem talkative. Focused on his mission, which John can respect, but once the adrenaline wears off he's starting to wonder _mission from whom?_

The answer opens the front door of the house, and John very nearly punches him in the face. But Moran's too quick, grabbing his arms in a firm lock. "Calm down there, soldier." 

"Seriously?! Jim fucking… _seriously_?"

Moriarty rolls his eyes. "A 'thank you' would suffice. I did just have to put a helicopter down in the Thames because of you." He scrunches his face into a mild expression and tilts his head to the side. "Then again, it _was_ stolen, and the pilot was kind of a dick."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"I told you it wasn't personal, Johnny," Moriarty argues as Moran shoves him gently into the house. "You remember."

Reluctantly, John does. Back at the sports centre, strapped to Semtex in the locker room and facing down James Moriarty, he had been given that one small concession— _Nothing personal, Johnny. We both know this isn't about you, but I need a bargaining chip, and it seems you're the man of the hour._  Even then, veins coursing with fear, he'd recognized Moriarty as an Elemental. But why this? And why now?

"I didn't expect you to go out of your way to save my life." John raises an eyebrow. "And a man's dead because of me?"

"Sebastian owed a friend a favor. The man who died was going to die anyway. And I despise those drones the Ice Man sends out after people like us. It was only a matter of time…"

"So I'm a hostage now?"

Moriarty scoffs. "To be a hostage we would have to care enough about your value to someone else to set up a deal. This has nothing to do with Sherlock. It only has a little bit to do with big brother. I've watched you, John Watson. It was fairly obvious that you were hiding something. What can I say?" Moriarty shrugs broadly. "I empathize."

"Well that's… nice. I guess. What now? I join the 'using your powers for evil' team or you kill me?"

Moriarty laughs. "So melodramatic. You're almost as bad as Sherlock. No, John. I'm not going to force you to stay here, or to work with me. But if you leave, again it's only a matter of time…" 

"I want to talk to Sherlock. He's out of the country… he might be able to help."

"Saving Irene Adler's life, I know," Moriarty replies mildly. John raises his eyebrows. "Mm, you might want to pretend I didn't say that. But sure, ring him if you'd like. Sebastian will get you a secure line."

"I would," John agrees, and he finally relaxes enough that Moran lets go of his arms. He steps inside, reluctantly following Moriarty into a sitting room.

"Drink?"

"I… don't think so." John sits warily on a sofa. His fingers are shaking. "How did you know I was in trouble?"

"The branch of the Security Services in charge of apprehending the 'dangerously imbued,'" Moriarty explains with elegant air quotes, "is less able to guarantee data security than they think they are. I monitor their activities."

"Ah." John frowns a little. "You're imbued."

"I'm an Elemental," Moriarty corrects. "Of course."

John nods. "You can't exactly blame me for being nervous about owing you a favor."

Moriarty barks out a laugh. "No, no, Johnny, I can't do that." He looks as if he's about to say something else, but Moran comes in and nods to a black phone on the wall. "Line one. I'll patch you through to Holmes' mobile." 

John doesn't ask why he has the number, just stands and goes to the phone. Sherlock doesn't pick up; John doesn't expect him to. He waits for the voicemail and then relays a short message.

"Sherlock, it's John. My team tried to apprehend me tonight for magic use in connection with Cobbs' death. Believe it or not... Moriarty rescued me. He works with… an old friend," John explains, glancing up at Moran. He doesn't want to give away the name for some reason. "He's not hurting me, but I need to know what to do. I have the option to stay here. Ring me on my mobile…"

"No," Moran interrupts. "Traced." He jots a number down and John repeats it back into the phone. 

"Ring as soon as you get this message. Thanks." John hangs up the phone and then turns back to Moriarty, at a lost for words. "Well. Now we wait, I suppose."

"Mm," the criminal agrees, pouring himself a glass of brandy. "Now we wait."

~*~

Twenty four hours later, there's been no response from Sherlock. John is trying to relax in this house, but it's difficult. Moran is just as stoic as he had been in the military, and the fact that Moriarty himself might be waiting around any corner is still somewhat frightening. John's more amused than scared, though, when he catches Moriarty's voice as he walks into the kitchen.

"Baby I'm hot just like an oven, I need some lovin'," the man croons.  "Baby I can't hold it much longer. It's getting stronger and stronger, and when I get that feeling, I want sexual healing, sexual… heeeeealing." John raises an eyebrow. Moriarty's falsetto is almost as alarming as his personality.

"I'm pretty sure Marvin Gaye sings that least an octave lower."

 

 

"Threatening my masculinity John, really?" Moriarty spins on his well-polished heel and tsks with a click of his tongue. "I kill puppies and frighten small children, remember," he states with a contrary cheerful tone, holding up a ham sandwich in greeting. 

John just snorts at him. "I'm a magically-imbued soldier with hand-to-hand combat training who gets off on danger, but who's counting?" Improbably, a grin cracks wide, and Moriarty matches it.

"Gets off on, you said? Interesting choice of words." Moriarty pauses a beat, and then the falsetto kicks in again right on cue.

"Sexual heeeeal-ing…"

 ~*~

Sherlock gets in touch the next morning. John assumes, though he doesn't say, that the man spent the time in the interim trying to track down Moriarty's house and failed. He's a little peeved that Sherlock was sufficiently concerned with his own hunt for the consulting criminal that he didn't at least bother to check on John's safety, but he swallows it for now.

"I'm certain Mycroft was involved. I wouldn't feel safe coming back to Baker Street."

"And yet, you feel safe staying with a criminal mastermind who does nothing without getting something in return," Sherlock counters, his tone sharp. "You can't trust him, John. His entire game for months has been getting to me."

"You have an ego the size of a house," John returns. "And I'm pretty sure he has business outside of riling you up."

"Business that you would certainly find morally repugnant. What about a safe house? I could contact Mycroft and speak with him in person. You know I, of all people, can read him."

"Yes, but if he's not going to be helpful, what are you going to do? Hide me in a safe house forever?"

"Better than shacking up with James Moriarty!" Sherlock exclaims. Sebastian, who's listening in, keeps his face impassive to his credit. "You know he's dangerously imbued, John. He's not some harmless user. He uses his magic to kill people for hire.

"I know that he's a criminal and a terrorist, which I am not particularly thrilled about, but I'm not bothered about the magic. I honestly don't think he wants to harm me. One, murdering me wouldn't be particularly interesting; two, it falls outside the remit of criminal consulting unless he's impossibly working _for_ the government; and three, I think we're about the same degree of thrilled that government agents are tracking down magic users to punish us for using in self-defense."

"Even so, he would harm you to get to me."

"Right, and it's all about you." John sighs. "Find out what you can about what will actually happen to me if I come in. Find out how safe a safe house would really be. I suppose I may eventually have to look into leaving the country, but for the moment, I'll stay put. And Sherlock, I mean this— _don't_ try to find me. I trust that Moriarty and I have common ground, but I don't need you provoking him."

"I wouldn't, John." He wonders whether he's imagining that Sherlock sounds hurt. "I value your well-being."

"Good. Stay safe." John hands the phone to Sebastian after he hangs up, and Moriarty steps into the room, probably listening in the whole time.

"Does he know what all your powers are?" Moriarty asks. His tone is conversational, rather than teasing or malicious, so John answers him.

"No. Why are you assuming I have more than he knows about?"

Moriarty scoffs, sitting on one sofa as Moran leaves the room, ankle crossed over knee and arms along the back of it. John takes the other. "All Elementals have a secret. Fire-magic with bigger flames than most people suspect, harmless water sprites who can manipulate the weather...we learn early that it doesn't benefit us to tell them everything."

"Do you have secret magic, then?"

Moriarty laughs. "I'm a psychopath." They both know it's not an answer to the question, but nor is John volunteering.  

"Sherlock describes your magic as manipulative. But it's energetic."

"Very good, Johnny-boy. Someone taught you the old names for the magics."

"My grandmother. No one else in my family was an Elemental." What he doesn't say is that he, too, has energetic magic. Given the stereotypes, it's not something he shares lightly.

"I often wonder if things would be different, were magic to inherit in all cases." Moriarty's smile is sharp with pain. "Perhaps your sister wouldn't have been a drunk."

John ignores the lashing out, just raises an eyebrow. "Perhaps your mother wouldn't have dropped you on your head as a child." 

The mastermind laughs, and the unease passes. John finds he doesn't have much, at the moment anyway, to fear.

~*~

The house is oddly comfortable. John takes walks around the surrounding country, and no one stops him. It's safe enough this far from London. Indoors, he peruses Moriarty's impressive library. In contrast to Sherlock's almost total focus on science, forensics, and criminology, Moriarty has a decent collection of fiction, tending towards the lyrical and literary with no authors obviously standing out. There's also poetry, military history, a fair bit of Irish material, and philosophical texts. John can't help but smile at a volume of Machiavelli.

Sherlock calls after a week. He's seen his brother, and the best he can tell John is that his choice to run won't look good for him, but the sentence will be much lighter if he turns himself in now than it will be if he's captured later. A few years of detention, education in proper use of magic, mandatory surveillance after that. Even if that really is all, John doesn't like it, and Sherlock admits to uncertainty about whether his brother is softening the probability. It's also not entirely in Mycroft's hands, and so Mycroft could honestly believe one thing while his supervisor ensures something else.

"Hiding isn't a permanent solution. You're on the watchlists now, which means you need to avoid CCTV, traffic cameras, using your ID or credit cards... I doubt you _can_ leave the country. It might be best to turn yourself in, even if you do have to serve a sentence. It'll be much worse if you're caught with Moriarty or his associates. Death might be considered a light sentence, in that case." 

"Either way, it's a bloody reeducation camp. You've heard the rumors."

"Possibly. Possibly it's not so harsh if you have friends in high places. Mycroft does value what you've done for me, John."

"Right. Well, pardon me if I'm not writing home about it." 

"Just consider it. The quicker you cooperate, the lighter the sentence. You can't blame them, I mean... you _did_ conceal the degree of your powers, even from me."

"For exactly this reason, Sherlock! I didn't want to be hassled. I almost never use magic, unless I'm saving your life!" _Lie_ , his treacherous brain supplies, but the guilt is dull with familiarity. "I follow their rules, I even serve on their patrols."

"I know, John." Sherlock sighs. "I'll keep trying."

"Yeah, all right. See that you do."

~*~

"To be honest, I'm strongly considering it," John admits over a rare shared meal with Moriarty. "I hate their laws. They're completely contrary to any reasonable idea of justice, but... I can't literally hide forever."

Moriarty shrugs. "He's trying to scare you. Sebastian's a sniper; he can teach you a thing or two about evading security cameras. Meanwhile, I can have someone slip some code into their surveillance systems that keeps them from pinging if your face comes up. Simple enough."

"Right, but I can't rely on your hospitality forever. Even if you're wealthy enough, I don't like it. I need to work. I'd get bored."

"I know the feeling." Moriarty's face lights up with a grin. "You could work for me."

"No." 

"Hold your horses, Johnny. As a doctor. The Hippocratic Oath still covers criminals, right? I have some people who need to avoid hospitals for various reasons... some of them Elementals. I could use you." 

"Uh, no offense, but everything I've heard about you as an employer suggests a high risk of getting my face blown off."

"Naah. I like you, Johnny. I'm only cruel to those who deserve it."

 "Uh, thanks. I think."

"Give it a think. It would mainly be patching up gunshot wounds and setting broken bones, well within your expertise and much better pay. Tax-free!" Moriarty's grin is devilish, and John just rolls his eyes.

~*~ 

As it turns out when he acquiesces to the idea, the setup's not bad. They put him in an office not far from the house, and bring in all the equipment he'll need to deal with a range of emergencies. He also does basic physicals for Moriarty's top men, and while it doesn't escape him that seeing their faces may mean he's marked if he ever makes it back to civilian life, John imagines it was too late for safety, anyway. 

It's only sheer damn luck that has him in the office—he keeps no regular hours—patching up a broken wrist when Sebastian brings a man in with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. 

"Christ!" John exclaims, then helps Sebastian get the bloke on a gurney and into the room designated as a surgery, checking vitals as he goes, going straight into field doctor mode. "Exit wound?"

"Affirmative. In and out, full metal jacket."

"Keep pressure on it. First name?"

"Tom."

"Hey Tom, my name is Doctor Watson, are you with us?" 

"Hurts..."

"Yeah, that'll do. Can you tell me your blood type, Tom?"

"A positive."

"Good man." John puts him on a cardiac monitor and pulse oximeter, followed by an oxygen mask. "Your breathing's good, that's what I want to hear," John reassures, brisk but calm. It's not unlike field medicine, though he'd usually had more support for actual emergency surgery. "When did this happen, Colonel?" Moran glances up to the clock on the wall.

"Seventeen minutes ago."

John nods curtly and proceeds to put the man on an IV and start the blood transfusion. "Any chance of getting me some more hands?"

"Boss is on his way. That's all I can do, Doc. I don't have anyone else close enough to recall quickly."

"All right," John concedes, adding antibiotics to the IV. "You're going to be my nurse and he's the anesthesiologist. Still with us, Tom?" John calls, not particularly surprised at the lack of response. He puts a blanket over the man's body as best he can with Moran still applying pressure, then inserts a Foley catheter.  "I'm going to intubate him and get him under, then I'm going to scrub up as quickly as I can. When I get back, you scrub up—wash your hands thoroughly, scrubs, mask, gloves, got it?"

Moran just nods sharply and John gets to work. Fortunately Moriarty is all business when he arrives, scrubbing up without complaint as John explains what he's going to need to monitor, getting his patient into position. They're able to prep him for surgery relatively quickly, both men responding to John's orders without complaint, but once he has Tom opened up and is conducting exploratory surgery, John realizes he's low on options and needs to do something a bit more drastic, something he's only ever done alone in the field before.

"Clear the room," he orders calmly. Both men just stare at him, and he lets out a sigh. "Clear. The room. I can save this man, but I need you out." He meets Moriarty's eye, and after a moment the criminal speaks. 

"Go, Sebastian." 

"I meant both of you."

Moriarty just glares at him, stubborn. "You're going to use magic. I'm not going to turn you in. This man is a very valuable associate of mine, now _do it."_ John sighs, not quite as cowed by the fire in Moriarty's eyes at some might be, but he acquieses. He feels very exposed, but he does believe in his oath, and so he peels off the gloves, laying his bare hands on the man to either side of the open abdominal cavity and then closing his eyes. The flow of energy through his fingers makes his body flush with heat, and he sees the human body not with his mind but like a map on some other level, his magic searching for bacteria to kill and wounds to seal. He's never quite understood this side of his magic—while he's on record as having some limited, benign healing powers, in fact it's much more extensive. Much more _violative_ , most would say, as John can indeed manipulate skin and tissue and make things happen with his energy and his senses that shouldn't be possible. He can make sensations manifest, make wounds and heal them, though he's never fully determined the extent of his abilities because he hasn't wanted to. There's a stigma against energetic magic for a reason, after all.  

Fortunately, this man's wounds are only moderately difficult to heal, and when John finishes inside, he finally seals the skin with a last rush of magic, no stitches required. When he opens his eyes, Moriarty is staring.

"I know," is all John says, quiet, ashamed. He's handed the other man a trump card, but Moriarty just helps him clean up and get his employee ready to wake comfortably. John's exhausted and grateful. 

~*~ 

"How many people know?" Moriarty asks him that night. Sebastian is out in the field, dealing with whatever led to the gunshot. He and Moriarty are alone, sipping very expensive whiskey in the study. Despite the opulence, John can see the exhaustion around Moriarty's eyes, and he seems more human after cleaning a man's blood and soiled blankets from a hospital bed.

"My family knows...some. Not the extent of it." 

"Sherlock?"

John shakes his head.

Moriarty laughs softly. "They all assume it's your physical abilities that make you dangerous. 'Leaps tall buildings in a single bound...' You actually could stop someone's heart, without even trying."

John lets the reference go. "I rarely use my energetic magic. Not since the war."

"I'm surprised Sherlock didn't deduce it. He's so fascinated by his doctor-soldier."

"He has a bit of a blind spot for magic," John admits. "I think he considers it cheating."

Moriarty laughs. " _Life_  is cheating, darling. Every day we cheat death."

John sips his drink, not disagreeing.

"I should know." Moriarty twists his glass, lips curling in a cruel introspective smile. "Soulless psychopath that I am."

"Stop that," John snaps, surprising even himself. A few weeks of acquaintance, though, have taught him that there are similarities between the two consultants, and maybe Sherlock only got luck of the draw when it comes to having societally acceptable skills, if not a bedside manner to go with them.

"People fear me, John. I won't pretend that they're wrong to do so. I won't even claim that you're perfectly safe here."

"Maybe," John sets his jaw, determined. "But that doesn't make you soulless." 

Moriarty tips his head to the side. "My magic was harder to hide than yours, when I was young." He takes a sip from his glass. "I tried to fight their fear at first, but it was ultimately a losing battle. They weren't wrong. I do _have_ energetic magic. Unusually strong magic. I see things others don't. I can manipulate people. No one likes having their mind messed with."

John can't really argue with that, so he tips his head, conceding the point. He is lucky that he didn't get mad at some kid and kill him on the playground in his own youth. He's grateful for his naturally measured temperament. Perhaps it's not so much the kind of magic that matters as the kind of person, or how someone's personality as a child shapes their magic use and ultimately their future. "Was that... how Carl Powers..." 

"No." Moriarty smiles into his drink. "Carl was a vicious little shit. He made me hate myself for a time... there wasn't really an ethical way to explain why I had these sorts of abilities, and I bought into his jibes for a year or two. But eventually, I had to either go slowly insane or decide that Carl and his mates were wrong. That I wasn't worse than them. That I could control myself." He takes another sip, then looks John directly in the eye. "I did kill him, but I didn't prove him right. Sherlock figured it out, with the shoelaces. I never used magic against Carl. If I am evil, or insane, then it isn't because I'm an Elemental."

John frowns. "The definitions of both 'evil' and 'sanity' are becoming less and less clear all the time, after spending time with you and Sherlock."

Moriarty laughs at that. "People don't trust me, John. And they're probably not wrong. You may want to think about that before you find yourself becoming sympathetic to my cause," he warns, abandoning his glass and standing to leave the room. John sits a good while longer, thinking of the man he saved tonight and of little Carl Powers. It's sunrise before he concludes that he doesn't have any answers.

~*~

As the weeks go on, hiding out from the British government and Mycroft Holmes remains relatively mundane. No more gunshot victims show up in the medical office, and John spends most of his time when not patching up Moriarty's higher-ups reading from the man's extensive library or taking walks. Moriarty and Moran are only actually around half the evenings, and without any solutions to his problem or a way to clue him in on investigations, Sherlock's stopped ringing. In other words, John's getting twitchy.

It's Moran who clues him in to the gym in the basement, a door John hasn't tried perhaps due to unconscious film-spawned associations between basements and serial killing. The gym is quite nice for a home setup, likely for Moran's benefit given how often he's here and the fact that John's never seen Moriarty work out. He especially likes using the chin-up bar and the punching bag—though he could get away without much exercise due to some of his physical magic, it's still a catharsis. He likes punching things. 

John's reveling in that zen-like state, fists pounding the speed bag in quick succession, when Moriarty comes down the stairs one evening. John doesn't see him at first, but he slows to a stop when the man comes into his line of vision, dressed casually and barefoot as he often is around the house.

"Don't you ever wear shoes?" John asks, endorphins limiting his brain-to-mouth filter. Fortunately, Moriarty doesn't seem offended by the abrupt question, and just grins at him.

"Need a sparring partner, Johnny?"

John licks his lips, tasting salt, and turns away from his host to grab his water bottle. He takes a few swallows before he answers the question.  "Even my renowned danger fetish doesn't extend to taking swings at criminal emperors. Get Moran down here?" 

Moriarty laughs. "He'd like that. Bit out of your weight class, though, if you're not playing dirty."

"You wound me." 

"I never said I didn't like dirty," Moriarty replies easily. John breaks his gaze first. "Anyway, I made a boeuf bourginon. I came down to see if you'd like to dine with me."

John raises his eyebrows. "Yeah, all right." He's witnessed the man's unexpected cooking talents, but they've never shared a dinner, at least not alone. 

"Shower first. You smell like a fight."

“You say that as if you don't like it," John counters, before he's quite realized he's flirting. Moriarty doesn't press, though, just looks pleased and returns to the stairs. John must, he decides, be _really_ bored. 

~*~

“Did you always want to be a doctor?” Moriarty asks. It’s such a pedestrian question that it takes John by surprise as he chews and swallows a bite of the delicious dinner they’re sharing.

“I suppose… but it was less want than an obvious choice. I was healing myself and other kids from a young age. I figured out that I needed to hold that back when adults started giving me funny looks… this was before the ’86 reforms, even.”

Moriarty nods. “I would’ve been executed. If I were born when you were.”

John bites his lip, then sips his wine. There’s not much to say to that. “When did you manifest?”

“At six. More dramatically at eight.” Moriarty’s mouth twists into a smile that is deliberate and not genuine, but John doesn’t blame him for not being fully open about this topic. “Unsurprisingly, I garnered little trust. My magic was difficult to control with a child’s emotional range.”

John smiles a little at that. “You still have an impressive emotional range, James.”

“Mm.” Moriarty meets his eyes for a long moment, until John wants to look away but doesn’t do so. “You never use my name. Do you still think of me as ‘Moriarty’ in your head?” 

“Usually,” John admits softly. “Would you prefer James?”

“Jim,” he rebukes, just as soft. His smile is smaller but authentic this time. “Though I like the way you say ‘James.’ Doesn’t sound like my mum when she was angry.”

“I would hope not,” John teases.

“Trust me, Johnny. You don’t remind me of my mother.” Jim smirks, and John hopes he’s not actually blushing. “Moriarty is a criminal empire, though. You live in my house.”

“Technically, I’m your employee.”

“Who lives in my house and eats my food,” Jim argues, gesturing with his fork. “And calls bullshit on me occasionally. Even Sebby rarely does that.”

John shrugs. “I’ve been told I don’t have a very strong self-preservation instinct.”

“No, but I think you do,” Jim disagrees cryptically. John doesn’t pursue it when he falls silent again. 

“This is good food. I’ll give you that.”

“Simple,” Jim argues. “Use a decent wine, but the secret ingredient is just time.”

John laughs. “No wonder I’m not much of a cook. I don’t think I’m very patient.” 

“Sebastian mentioned you scored well on your sniping tests. Snipers live and die by patience.”

“True, but I’m not a sniper. I can take the shot, but I wouldn’t want to lie in the same position for hours under the brush. Field medicine involves much more action, when you’re actually in the field. And we found ways to deal with the boredom otherwise.”

“That sounds terribly naughty.” Jim grins. “Do you have any war stories for me?”

John snorts a laugh and shakes his head. “I’d ask Sebastian if that’s what you’re after. The worst I ever did was sleep with a couple of women on leave.”

“Prostitutes?”

“No!” John laughs, not exactly offended, but he’s never had to pay for sex.

“Well, you don’t speak Pashto or Dari, do you? It can’t be easy to pick up a woman without any words for wooing,” Jim teases.

“Ah, but I’m good with body language,” John grins conspiratorially, licking his lips. Jim grins in response. 

“I’d like a demonstration sometime,” Jim suggests, and John decides not to clarify what exactly that means. Instead, he shuts his mouth and drinks his wine.

“Does Sebastian ever call you Jim?” he asks after a minute or two of eating in silence, as the thought occurs. Jim shrugs.

“He calls me ‘boss.’ It’s appropriate.”

“But everyone else calls you Moriarty. Did you start that as soon as you started your… business ventures?” 

Jim laughs. “Very delicate, Johnny. I’m a criminal consultant; I know what I do isn’t sanctioned as legitimate business activity by the sort of people you spend your time with. Or did, before you got caught.” John raises his eyebrows, but Jim continues to talk. “But to answer your question, yes. I prefer it as a calling card. My surname has more of a ring to it than ‘Jim,’ and my father was an evil enough man himself.” He smirks, eyes on his plate, stabbing a bit of potato. “Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain. I learned to fit the role that the world would allow me to have. I would say I’ve thrived in it, but forgive me for being immodest.” Now he does look up at John, who just shakes his head.

“It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, then? No one can accept your magic, so you become a super-villain? I don’t believe for a second that you’re that passive. Or for that matter, that simple,” he challenges, pointing his fork at Jim. 

“The world is simple.” He sounds a bit gruff, not willing to go further, so John doesn’t press on the bit of intimacy Jim’s shown him, but he can’t help but be curious. He doesn’t honestly believe the story’s quite so concise. Convenient, perhaps, but incomplete. He makes a note to find out more another time, if Jim will let him.

~*~

It's more than two months into his stay chez Moriarty that John realizes the house has a TV, tastefully hidden behind the wooden doors of a cabinet in the sitting room. He's never been a news hound, but he decides to catch up on the happenings of the outside world this evening, with Moriarty and Moran out wherever they stay when they're not here. After a piece about unemployment and a story of scandal within the London city government, the BBC turns to coverage of the UK's magic containment patrols, and John clicks the volume up with interest. 

“Up until twenty-eight years ago, the British government considered the dangerously imbued a threat to society, akin to enemies of the state. Officials identified and charged those magic users likely to be dangerous from an early age," a female reporter drones ominously. “Today, thanks to the Humane Treatment for the Magically Imbued Act of 1986, many of the imbued are able to live independently, provided they keep their magic under a reasonable degree of control. But at what cost?” The shot of the reporter, standing on a city street and wearing a smart suit, cuts to a family photograph of a middle-aged woman in Navy dress uniform with a portly man and a small girl. "Miranda Hawkins, a member of the Manchester Special Police Volunteer Force, lost her life earlier this month when a dangerously imbued renegade magic user, Sadie Elisabeth O’Conner, resisted arrest using deadly flame and fled the peaceful patrol. O’Conner, still at large, was spotted by a non-imbued citizen shortly after 10 pm in the act of starting an uncontrolled and unsanctioned fire on the outskirts of Manchester city…"

John sighs and puts his feet up as the journalist goes on to describe Sadie O’Conner for the benefit of “alert citizens” and then profiles Hawkins’ team, describing the patrol as “volunteers who use their magical abilities to preserve the peace, in contrast to the dangerously imbued persons into whose line of fire they bravely put themselves to protect ordinary citizens.” John wonders how the BBC would define an “ordinary citizen,” anyway. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t qualify, as sure as he is that those “volunteers,” Hawkins included, didn’t strictly volunteer for their duties. When the broadcast ends, he switches off the telly, opting instead for Moriarty’s bookshelves and his normal routine here. He settles down with a collection of fairy stories bound in leather, an oddly whimsical volume for the man who makes his living running a massive criminal syndicate. Somehow, he’s not that surprised.

Curling up on the sofa, John imagines Moriarty as a little boy, enamored of Irish fairytales and of more immediate magic. He wonders if Jim read his classmates’ minds by habit before his powers fully manifested, thinking the tuning in to the steady channel of mental chatter to be a normal part of daily communication. Even given his circumstances and his profession, the man seems rather given to fancy. John can admit to himself, alone in this house, that he finds Jim’s laughter pleasant and doesn’t mind getting him on a humorous tangent when he can. He can’t quite see a younger Jim as the class clown or prankster, though. Despite the sharp edges and frankly disturbing ability to cultivate an expressionless mask from his ever-shifting face, Jim has some vulnerabilities that have become almost obvious to John. A small, strange part of him wants to protect Jim from someone like Sherlock or worse, Mycroft, getting a hold of those same observations and using them to harm Moriarty. It’s not hard to picture a primary-school Jim being teased by those around him, trying to fold in on himself to avoid the bullying.  

Still, Jim’s right to count himself lucky, falling under the remit of the ’86 law before his powers manifested only by the skin of his teeth. Bullying seems like a blessing in contrast to the harsh pre-reform treatment, when those with powers like Jim’s were almost summarily executed or, barring that, locked up for life. John almost wishes he could show the anti-reform faction this house, remind them that little boys with powerful energetic magic also read fairytales. Then, in truth, he’s not sure it would make any difference.

~*~

 “Letter for you,” Sebastian announces unceremoniously one day. John frowns as he takes the cream-color envelope, the weave of the paper fine and John’s full name handwritten on the front.

“How did you get this?”

“Through a contact.”

John doesn’t doubt Sebastian knows what’s inside, or at least whom it’s from. He’d have to, to be letting John open it. But then again, there are few people who would go to such trouble and write in such impeccable calligraphic script. The letter itself is typed, but signed by a familiar hand, requesting John’s return to London.

“I don’t know what the point is,” John sighs, handing Sebastian the letter. “He knows I won’t turn myself in. Sherlock’s told him.”

“He wants to make you nervous. He certainly doesn’t want you to get comfortable and forget about the whole thing.”

“As if I could forget. I’m essentially in exile—no offense.”

Sebastian holds his hands up. “None taken. If I were you I would’ve shot my way out and gone up with them. You’re more patient than you let on.”

“Well, I don’t have many options. And this isn’t bad.” John shrugs. “I get to practice medicine a little. I’m not terribly bored. Eventually I’ll have to figure out something more permanent, but I haven’t given up yet on Sherlock.”

“He’s always going to be Holmes’s brother. You can’t escape that.”

“No, but he does genuinely want to help me.”

“Maybe. I’ve always been more impressed by actions.”

John tips his head in acknowledgement, and they let the subject drop.

~*~

John notices Jim's shoes first, for some reason. The usual Italian leather of business coming across the ceramic tiles signal Jim’s arrival, and John watches them for a good few seconds before he looks up and catches the scowl as Jim shoves his phone into his pocket. Sympathetic, John offers half of his sandwich, which is rebuked with a short shake of the head.

“People are reprehensible,” Jim mutters. He sits down on the stool next to John and rests his elbows on the counter, scrubs his hands through his hair. He looks older, and John uncertainly presses a hand to Jim’s lower back, his palm meeting the smooth uncreased fabric and his fingers splaying slightly. He’s not sure why he does it, but Jim doesn’t recoil. He can’t think of anything to say, so he just stays like that, one anchoring hand at Jim’s back. The other man falls into silence that feels strangely comfortable. When he finally shakes off his pout and stands again, John’s eyes again fall to his feet. He watches, with a little twinge of something he doesn’t entirely recognize, as Jim walks away.

~*~

“How does your magic feel?” John asks one night, a bit drunk. Jim’s made another amazing meal, and he’s feeling confident. Jim raises an eyebrow at the question.

“How does it  _feel_?”

“Yeah. I mean… when you do stuff…” John waves a hand in the air for emphasis. “You don’t really talk about what your magic actually is. But I know it’s a little like mine. And when I heal someone I feel… kind of warm. Like there's this rush of energy, and I’m opened up and powerful and I can just see everything.”

“I think you’re tipsy,” Jim smiles, but he doesn’t reject the question outright. “Mine feels powerful too. And like a lot of responsibility.”

“Because you could fuck up someone’s head?”

“Usually they expect me to.”

John makes a dismissive sound and points a finger at him. “Well I don’t. I think you’re surprising.”

“Still,” Jim counters. “You wouldn’t want me messing about in your head.”

“How do you know?” John pushes his chair back from the table, his posture relaxed in it. “I don’t believe that any magic is entirely evil. You implied before that there’s a good side to it, that people just underestimate you because it freaks them out.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. So show me.” John meets Jim’s eyes in challenge, bolstered by the alcohol but also intensely curious. It feels like something he just wants to get out into the open, and for some reason it also feels like a missing piece.  

“No one has ever asked me that,” Jim replies, and his voice is unexpectedly soft and serious. John tries to will himself to sober up a bit, but doesn’t back down.

“Will you?” he asks, standing from the table and coming around to Jim’s side. Jim looks up at him, assessing, and then suddenly wraps his hand around John’s wrist.

“Look at me,” he orders, his voice soothing and warm. John focuses on his eyes without even thinking about it, feeling like he’s slowly sinking. It doesn’t scare him, though, not given the context. He opens himself up to it and relaxes even as Jim pulls him deeper. Somehow, he can tell what’s happening, feel the subtle push of Jim’s magic. He takes a step closer, almost pressed against his side, and his limbs start to feel warm and a little loose. He sinks slowly to his knees, his gaze linked with Jim’s until Jim suddenly pulls away, the mental connection broken and Jim’s expression a little spooked.

“Was that so bad?” John asks with a little smile, trying to break the tension, but Jim just stares at him. It makes John think of Sherlock, trying to solve a puzzle. 

“Why did you let me do that?”

John considers the question, then shrugs. “Because in spite of myself, I like you. Because I think everyone’s told you that your magic is a curse.”

Jim frowns. “You don’t think it is.”

“I think there’s more to you than most people see.” John carefully gets to his feet, though he keeps his eyes on Jim. “I’ve always been stubborn.”

“Clearly,” Jim agrees. John smiles and says goodnight. He’s given the other man enough to think on for now, and he now has a few things to think about himself.

~*~

“You asked me how it feels,” Jim says without preamble when John comes down for breakfast in the morning. Usually, Jim would be gone by now, but he’s sitting in the kitchen with a spread of fresh fruit, and he’s obviously been thinking about this for the better part of the night if his red-rimmed eyes are anything to judge by. “It feels like a weapon, usually. At the very least, a tool. It makes me feel powerful.”

“Your magic?” 

Jim nods.

“Okay,” John acknowledges gently. He sits down and takes a strawberry. “Because you use it most often on your enemies?”

“Do you expect me to use it on friends?” Jim sneers. “It’s hardly common for someone to consent to mind control. No one stays friendly for long if your way of understanding the world is through working inside other peoples’ minds.”

“I guess they wouldn’t,” John agrees. “You use magic when you work with your business associates, though, don’t you?”

Jim nods. “I wouldn’t be half this good if I didn’t.”

“Do you prefer using magic to the non-magical part of your mind?”

“I prefer using both,” Jim retorts. “Why would I use only half of my abilities?"

John nods. “That seems logical to me.”

“But unethical. Doctor,” Jim sneers. Frankly, John expects it. He can sense the vulnerability, and he doesn’t blame the other man.

“I don’t think it’s an easy ethical question,” John admits. "But I think it would be unethical to expect you _not_  to ever use your magic, too. If mental control or whatever you call it is part of your worldview, and how things work for you, then I can understand why you have to use it, at least sometimes. I’d feel better about it if it were consensual, but you’ve convinced me that not many people are willing to give you that chance. And I doubt that manipulating people into doing things they don't want is the only form your magic takes. It's rare to only have one use for it like that. So the judgment does seem unfair.”

Jim raises his eyebrows. “Very progressive of you.”

John shrugs. “Not really. I know what it’s like to try not to use your magic. It feels like you _have_  to sometimes, doesn’t it? I tried to hold back for a few months and I ended up cutting into my own organs with my magic, just to feel it heal.” He looks down at the fruit, cutting into a peach and grateful for the silence as he manages a few slices, realizing what he’s said. “I never told anyone that.”

“What happened?” Jim asks, his tone almost childishly excited. “What did it feel like?” John can’t bring himself to any rebuke, though his voice does remain quiet, as if Sebastian might walk in at any minute.

“It hurt. I mean fuck, it hurt.” John laughs softly. “The healing doesn’t necessarily take care of the pain. I have to focus on that separately. I didn’t really want to, then,” he admits. “And it was a dumb idea; if I'd gone into shock and lost consciousness I wouldn't have been able to use my magic. But healing is this weird peaceful feeling… it’s sort of like a trance, in a way. It seems hedonistic when you’re doing it to yourself.”

“Is it pleasurable?” 

John almost flinches at the intensity of Jim’s dark eyes, and he does have to look down again. Jim’s flirted plenty of times before, but this feels more intimate than even a direct dirty comment. He nods slowly. “It is.”

A moment of silence holds, and then Jim rises from his stool, leaving the room without a word. John finishes his breakfast and tries not to focus on the surge of adrenaline in his blood.

~*~ 

The attack wasn’t intended for Jim, Sebastian explains hurriedly as John climbs into the back of the car and rolls up his sleeves. No one knows who Jim is, after all, but he got caught up in a surprise ambush involving some pissed-off air Elementals, and Sebastian was barely able to get him into the car and away before Jim asphyxiated. John nods and tells Sebastian to get out, lock the doors, and watch their surroundings. He doesn’t care how sure Sebastian is that no one followed them, he’s not taking chances with Jim out of commission. Fortunately, Sebastian takes orders like someone with years of military experience and the flexibility to shift his ideas of chain of command in an unusual situation. Once they’re alone, John rips Jim’s suit open, not caring too much about the popping buttons on articles of clothing worth more than he’s ever made in a month. He’s focused on getting to skin, which isn’t essential but helps him to make a better connection. Given how pale Jim is, unmoving, pulse thready, John needs that connection.

The damage is evident as soon as John makes the energetic link with Jim’s body. With a ravaged throat and lungs, he’s lucky to be drawing any breath at all right now. His blood is oxygen-starved, muscles weak, and for a long minute John isn’t certain he can fix everything that’s damaged here. In addition to the physical harm, there’s a kind of fog that sometimes comes with the work of an Elemental using magic as a weapon, thick with resistance.

But after a few minutes of drawing his energy together, John pushes past that fog with sheer bloody-mindedness and a kind of unexpected fury that rises up from his chest in the face of seeing a man whose company he’s come to genuinely value rendered so weak. It unnerves him more than he’d like to admit that the untouchable Moriarty has been badly injured by an attack not even intended for him, that John wasn’t there and that it was only Sebastian’s quick reflexes that saved him. He puts all his frustration into his healing powers, focusing on the lungs and trachea, giving strength to muscle tissue and reviving the body to better take in precious air. He’s not quite finished when Jim regains consciousness, his eyes hazy and unfocused. A little moan falls from his lips as John completes his work, and John keeps his hands on Jim longer than is strictly necessary. When he finally helps Jim out of the car, ordering Sebastian to get a cannula and some oxygen from the medical office so that Jim can fully heal under John’s supervision, he’s still clingy, keeping a hand on the other man. Jim, mercifully, doesn’t complain. 

~*~

Sherlock’s picture appears in a story buried halfway through the Metro section of the  _London Times_ , and John finds that he doesn’t miss appearing in the photo. The article is about a perplexing murder investigation involving a couple of Fire Elementals. Though she doesn’t seem to be directly involved, the suspects are linked to the Sadie O’Conner case, and the writer notes that the Yard has solicited help from the intelligence services. 

_Mycroft_ , John substitutes, quirking a nasty smile as he imagines it. Sticking his nose in where he doesn’t belong, as usual, Mycroft and his cronies will be thrilled to have another example to throw at the relevant politicians when it comes to controlling the imbued population. Perhaps he’s being even more vigilant since he can’t catch John—must be a blot on his otherwise perfect record, John muses. Though he doesn’t have any idea whether Mycroft is personally anti-reform, he’s pretty sure Mycroft’s career depends on being able to show a certain degree of control over the imbued masses. John’s disappearance is bit of a two-fingers-up at that job requirement, and he can’t help being pleased with himself. 

Sherlock’s image, on the other hand, makes him a bit nostalgic, if not exactly homesick. He misses the mad genius, even if he doesn’t fully trust him. He contemplates sending some sort of a message, perhaps through his blog, but ultimately folds the paper and decides against it. It’s not John's responsibility to make the next move.

~*~

When Jim kisses him, he’s almost expecting it. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, the last few months working up to a moment. John’s thought about what would happen, if this did happen… but in the moment it’s nothing like his intellectual analysis, and the pros and cons concerning intimacy with a man, with this man, are hard to access with Jim’s lips soft against his and a strong grip on his hips after nearly six months without significant physical contact. 

He hesitates, at first, but returns the kiss quickly enough, an unhurried meeting of closed mouths that intensifies gradually as the spaces between kisses grow shorter and he slides his arms around Jim’s neck, his fingers digging into the hair at the base of Jim’s skull.

“Johnny-boy,” Jim breathes out after a minute, grinning against John’s mouth, and John huffs a laugh, rolling his eyes. “I thought you were a confirmed heterosexual.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” John counters.

Jim grins. “Because I thought perhaps you could be convinced to be more flexible?”

John scoffs. “Don’t take all the credit,” he warns, licking out against Jim’s lips to taste them.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jim murmurs, tugging John up tighter against his chest. John feels a hint of constriction when Jim holds him harder and kisses his breath away, but it doesn’t make him want to run. In fact, it spikes a rush of unexpected lust through his body, and he lets himself relax in response. There’s no one here to see his reactions, so he imagines he might as well enjoy them.

“What are we doing?” John whispers after a minute, his body calm in contrast to Jim’s hand hard on the back of his neck.

“Telling everyone else to fuck off,” Jim announces with a certain degree of determination. He licks at John’s jaw and John shivers without much dignity. “Don’t worry, Johnny-boy. I’m not going to fuck you. Cart before the horse.”

“That… wasn’t what I was thinking about.”

“But now you are,” Jim sing-songs, then grins. “Sorry. Can’t help myself.” This time he scrapes his teeth lightly along John’s neck.

“You are a menace,” John mutters, but doesn’t stop him. Instead, he slides his palms down Jim’s chest, feeling the muscle underneath, waiting for a feeling of _wrongness_  that never comes. He surprises himself when he clutches hard at the man’s hips and inhales sharply, tilting his head to the side. “Harder.”

He doesn’t have to see the grin to know it’s there, just an instant before bracing pain just an inch below his earlobe. John hisses and bucks a little, and Jim responds instinctively, slamming him back into the wall. That _thud_ , his back against the wall, Jim’s hands on him, ignites a spark in John and his need to just _feel something_  rears up in his consciousness, driving his body and forcing a groan from his lips. 

“ _James_ ,” he breathes, and the teeth at his neck clamp down harder for just an instant before the other man releases and sucks at the spot. John feels a kind of warm, insistent presence in his mind, but it’s not so much a push as a reaching, something in Jim grasping for something else in John. He exhales and relaxes, trying to open his mind up to whatever Jim’s magic is looking for. _Reckless_ , _dangerous_ , the voice of Sherlock Holmes warns in the back of his mind, but he doesn’t give a damn. He honestly doesn’t know that Jim can fully control his magic in this kind of moment, but he doesn’t feel fear as a result. His primary emotion is curiosity. John arches under Jim’s touch and feels little flashes of heat under his skin that he’s probably unintentionally manifesting through his own magic. When Jim moves to press his teeth at John’s collarbone, he moans out loud. 

“Fuck. This is fast,” John whispers, and Jim looks up with a flash of concern. 

“Too fast—?”

“No,” John responds quickly. “No, just… fuck,” he laughs, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “I think my legs are gonna give out.”

Jim’s grin is cocky, but John can also see the relief in it. “I have that effect on people.”

“Oh, fuck you,” John returns with no heat, grinning back. “You haven’t got laid in the last four months. I’d know.”

“Would you now, Johnny-boy?” 

“Mmm.” John grins knowingly and grabs him by the back of the head, kissing him hard and pressing boldly up against the length of his body. “Yes.” He only pulls away a few inches, and the fire is back in Jim’s eyes. He looks like he wants to devour something whole, possibly John. 

“Sofa.” 

“Yeah,” John agrees, half-stumbling with him to the closest sofa in Jim’s office. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” he admits.

“Have you never thought about it? Being with a man.”

John shakes his head. “That’s not what I said. Just…”

“Get comfortable,” Jim says, pushing John down onto the sofa, on his back. “I want you. I’ve wanted you for weeks… longer, maybe.” John can see that he’s not totally comfortable making that admission, but he’s making an effort for John. John takes a risk of his own in response, just doing what he wants to do and dragging his fingers along the inseam of Jim’s trousers, from high on his thigh down to his knee. 

“I want you. I don’t know _how_ I want you, but… yeah. It’s getting hard to ignore. Fuck.” John reaches up for him again because kissing is easy, something he can trust to his body and his instincts. Jim kisses like a force of nature, smooth and slick at one moment and then driving forward, letting the tendrils of his mind wrap around John’s neural pathways and _tug_. John doesn’t resist, but he does react, one leg hooking over Jim’s and his hand grabbing at Jim’s hair, trying to focus his energy. A burst of sound escapes Jim’s mouth and John realizes he’s manifesting sensation without meaning to, some of his raw need and energy channeling itself into physical pleasure in his partner’s body. He normally keeps a tighter-than-tight leash on his magic during sex and he’s not sure how to feel about this, but Jim’s reactions are enough to keep him from second-guessing it right now. 

He pushes up against Jim, kissing harder, hands restless on his back, and after a few minutes he realizes that Jim is still kissing him with all the passion and need built up inside his body, but he’s also trembling, brow furrowed in concentration. John frowns and slows the kisses to a pause, reaching up to touch his cheek.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Jim spits, and tries to steal another kiss, but John pushes him up with both hands on his shoulders.

“No. Not nothing. Tell me.” 

Jim scowls, his eyes darting to the side, and when John reads the shame there, he has a good idea of what’s going on in Jim's brain. 

“Hey,” he murmurs again, lifting up for a softer kiss. “Don’t.” 

“I could end you,” Jim growls, obviously trying to conjure up “Moriarty” in a self-protective moment, but John refuses to buy it.

“Shh. I don’t care. Come inside.” Jim frowns and John kisses him again, patiently, slow coaxing kisses until he starts to open up again. John sucks gently on his tongue and drags his nails down Jim’s spine, under his shirt. “Come inside,” he murmurs again. “I want you. I can’t control it either.”

Jim looks skeptical, and John lets a pulse of energy flow into Jim’s core, the man’s eyes flashing wide as he feels it.

“I want you in my mind,” John repeats, clearly, licking a long line up Jim’s neck to his ear. “I trust you.”

“You fucking idiot,” Jim whispers, but John just laughs, relief bubbling up when Jim initiates more kisses, continuing the slow exploration. There’s less obvious heat in it now, but John feels the pressure of Jim’s influence on his mind, pushing him down, beating an erotic tattoo inside his skull. Flashes of thoughts come to him, dirty but not unfamiliar. Jim seems to be drawing John’s own quiet, hidden fantasies to the forefront of his consciousness, not manipulating them but refusing to let them remain hidden. Without control over his own stream of thoughts, John thinks of Jim grinning at him in the bright, open kitchen, bare toes curling around a rung of his stool. He thinks of Jim’s mind pushing him to his knees, less a forceful presence and more an invitation, peeling back his inhibitions to expose something brighter and more vulnerable. He blushes as Jim’s mouth continues to claim him and he hardens against Jim’s thigh. He knows that Jim can probably see every image, feel every emotion as John experiences them. Longing, desire, a need to be subordinate in ways that he rarely can express. A fantasy comes to him for only the second time, an image he first conjured a week ago of himself forced chest-first against a blank wall and his arms roughly wrenched behind his back. The fantasy doesn’t contain many details, but he’s clear about his assailant kicking his legs apart and a warm whisky-scented breath on his neck, promising destruction in a smooth Irish accent. He whimpers and twists a bit under Jim, whose grip becomes firmer, holding John’s wrists over his head now on the sofa. He sucks at John’s bottom lip and grinds his hips in slow rolls, coaxing pleasure to the surface.

“John,” Jim murmurs, like a half-finished thought, flicking his tongue against John’s lips. His thumbs press against the veins of John’s wrists and John feels himself sinking deeper, eyes closed, mind as open as his body is to letting this go wherever it will. Jim’s hesitance, his fear, is as evident as his desire, and John wants to hold that like a precious thing and shield it from the world even as he knows Jim might kill him ruthlessly if he ever consciously realizes what he’s letting John see. He keeps his mind open as he presses up into Jim, hands splaying on his back to hold him close.

“James,” he sighs, lifting his head to suck on Jim’s tongue. Jim groans and lets his weight go, pressing fully against John’s body. He wishes he could isolate this moment, store it in something like Sherlock’s mind palace, untainted by whatever doubts and complications are inevitably going to come up later. But if nothing else, he’s determined to fully experience it, and so he narrows his focus to his own heartbeat and Jim’s breathing, fragmented in gasps against his own questing mouth. 

  
_So I ran to the devil, he was waitin’, r_ _an to the devil, he was waitin'_  
 _Ran to the devil, he was waitin’, all on that day_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Jim's new relationship develops, largely through a lot of rough sex. Exploration of their magic pushes boundaries and pulls things in a more serious direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with the last chapter, cliffhangers are intentionally avoided and you could read these first two chapters as a standalone, to guard a bit against my very slow pace.
> 
> Content Notes: This chapter includes things like hypnosis, blood, fear play, and mind control. If you have particular concerns, leave a comment and I'll help you figure out what part(s) to skip.

_So I run to the river, it was bleedin’,_ _I run to the sea, it was bleedin'_

 _I run to the sea, it was bleedin’,_ _All 'long dem day_

 

Sound is the first thing to slowly filter into John’s senses, the hushed tones of a conversation from the other side of the bed. It takes him a second to realize the whispered voice isn’t speaking to him, but to someone on the other end of a telephone line—Moran, perhaps, or another of Jim’s men. 

“Give her something small if you like—but I want that file before we make any hasty decisions. Yeah. Yeah, of course. You know what to do.” Jim rings off, and John blinks his eyes open as he puts the mobile on the nightstand and rolls back towards John, under the luxuriously heavy duvet. 

They’re both dressed down to their pants, though technically there was no sex the night before. In retrospect, John’s more hazy on the definition of sex than he’s ever been, though, given how deep he’d invited Jim in. Not only magic, but the strange intimacy they’ve cultivated blurred the lines of the erotic, and he can’t say he minds as Jim cuddles up close to his side and drags his fingertips down over John’s stomach, curving proprietarily along the line of one hipbone. “Morning, gorgeous,” Jim murmurs, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Too early,” John decides, his heavy lids falling closed again though he makes a soft sound of encouragement at Jim’s familiar petting.

“Maybe for you. Crime never sleeps."

“Neither does Sherlock Holmes, I'm used to that,” John counters. “But I was enjoying my holiday of lie-ins."

Jim laughs. “I wouldn’t mind a kip. But then you’re right here. Tempting me.” John feels Jim shift in the bed and then the warm press of dry lips against his own. He smiles and parts his lips to kiss Jim back.  

“How offended are you by morning breath?"

“Mm. Not enough to stop you from that,” Jim murmurs playfully, licking John’s mouth open. He shifts half on top of John, and a bony hip digs into John's thigh. He wonders if he's going to have to start nagging Jim to eat, and gets a feeling of déjà vu that he chases away by hooking a leg around Jim's and feeling their bodies pressed fully together, almost of a height.

"Naughty," Jim purrs when John's hand gives his arse an exploratory squeeze. "Daddy likes."

John just snickers and rolls his hips up a bit, not with any real intent. Jim's half hard, and he nips a smattering of bites along John's jaw. "All right?" he purrs at John's ear. "Not freaking out on me?" 

"No," John promises. "I'd say as long as we take it slow... but last night didn't feel slow," he admits, nails dragging up Jim's back. He feels the other man tense, but keeps his arms around him so he can't pull away.

"You asked," Jim almost pouts, and John smiles into his shoulder. 

"I know. And I'm not taking it back. I only mean... in a lot of ways that felt more intimate than sucking your cock. And the last thing it made me want to do was have a gay panic."

"Ah," Jim relents softly, though his muscles are still tense. John digs his thumbs into Jim's shoulders, working directly into the stiffness there.

"How long have you been in hiding?" John asks softly, changing the subject.

"I don't know. What does 'hiding' mean, exactly? I slipped under the radar in my teens. Completely in my early twenties." 

"Moran hasn't been with you that long, though," John points out, doing the math on the man's military service. 

"Six years." 

"I'm surprised you trusted him," John admits, working into the muscles under Jim's shoulderblades. "Not being an Elemental."

"I didn't," Jim counters. "Not for a long time. But Seb doesn't give a shite about all that. He hates the government as much as I do, for good reason."

"Fair." John doesn't know much about what happened, but he does know that Moran's discharge was not honorable. He muses on it as he kneads gently along Jim's spine, until Jim suddenly sinks his teeth into John's neck. He yelps, but doesn't quite struggle, grabbing hard at Jim and breathing sharply into the pain.

“I can see everything that’s going to happen,” Jim murmurs against his skin, hands tight on John’s hips. “This relationship can’t proceed any other way, really. It’s  _obvious_.” He picks another spot, presses his teeth in with a bright hot surge of pain.

“Obvious how?” John gasps, trying to focus on the words because usually when Jim gets fickle like this it’s important, a fraying around his vulnerable edges.

“Someone figures out that you’re a way to get to me. Threatens you. I make a wrong move because I’m angry. And the wall comes tumbling down…” Jim whisper-sings. John frowns, grabs him by the hair and meets his gaze.

“Hey. Do I look like a damsel to you?"

Jim laughs. “No. But you have been kidnapped far more often than the statistical average since meeting Sherlock Holmes. People notice these things. I did."

“Fuck that,” John retorts sharply, lifting his head and sucking Jim’s bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m not letting you finish this before it’s started,” he declares when he releases it.  

“Ah, no danger of that,” Jim sighs, back to a gentle, sensual purr. “I’d be too greedy to let you go. I just wanted you to know. How it’s going to end."

“Bring it on,” John snarls, then falls back against the pillow as Jim digs his nails into John’s hips, sinking into the pain that’s perhaps meant to be scary but in truth mostly turns him on. 

~*~ 

Jim disappears for two days after that first night together, though he does contact John, lets him know that business calls. John doesn’t expect that he’ll see Sebastian in the house before he does Jim, though, and it’s rather incongruous to watch the man cleaning his gun on the coffee table in the sitting room. 

“Moran,” he nods, looks around. “Jim’s still out?"

“Yep. Not a job he needs me for.  _Politics_ ,” Sebastian sneers, and John laughs as the sniper expertly disassembles the pieces of an AS50 semi-automatic rifle. 

“I’m with you there, mate. May I?” He holds a hand out, slowly, towards another rifle sitting on the table, and waits for Sebastian’s nod before he lifts it into his lap, whistling as he inspects it. 

“Venom tactical taipan. Gorgeous, isn’t she?"

“Hell yes. What’s the range on this one?" 

“Reasonably? 1700 meters."

“What about unreasonably?"

Sebastian cracks a smile. “If you weren’t under mild house arrest, I’d take you out and show you."

John carefully puts the gun back on the table and raises his hands defensively. “I still would rather not actually be witnessing the crimes, if you don’t mind. Makes me nervous."

“Thought you liked danger."

“Oh, do I have a reputation now?” 

Sebastian just grins, continues cleaning the gun. His pistol, John recognizes as an HK45, and he does long a little bit for the feel of skin-warmed metal in his hands, but he’s also happy to stay out of any firefights for the foreseeable future. 

“Does Jim let you pick out your toys?” John asks, indicating the array of weaponry with a wave of his hand.  

“Yeah. Boss knows a lot about strategy and general tactics but fuck all about weaponry. He’s lethal with a knife, though. We’ve been in a couple of close scrapes together." 

John’s rather glad Sebastian doesn’t have any magical abilities to sense out his sudden arousal at the mention of his new lover’s knife skills. He’s a little fucked in the head, maybe, but he’ll put it down to a competency kink. “He certainly doesn’t seem harmless,” John responds mildly, sitting back against the sofa. “But then, anyone running the show who relies entirely on hired muscle doesn’t last long."

“That’s the truth,” Sebastian grunts in agreement. “I don’t have any respect for blokes like that." 

“No,” John agrees, thinking of Mycroft as he rises to go brew some tea. “Nor do I."

~*~

“Daddy’s home!” Jim calls out cheerfully following the beep of the security system, and John shakes his head fondly where he sits in the living room, reading a recent post (acerbic as usual, focused on animal forensics) on Sherlock’s blog. 

“Do you actually have a kink for that kind of thing, or is it just a turn of phrase?” he asks when Jim finds him, and he gives himself a mental point for obviously catching the genius slightly off guard.

“Pardon?"

“The ‘Daddy’ stuff. Are you into younger guys or something? Or pretending?"

Jim recovers and vaults smoothly over the sofa, impressive in his thousand-pound suit, landing next to John with an arm around him and a kiss on his cheek. He glances briefly at the computer screen, but doesn’t comment on it. “I prefer doctors pushing forty, actually,” he teases. “You needn’t worry about that, sweetheart."

“I wasn’t,” John smirks. “I was curious, though. You say it a lot. The Daddy thing." 

Jim does seem to actually consider the topic then, though he keeps his mouth busy as he thinks, nibbling lightly on John’s neck. “I like the idea of being 'Daddy,'” Jim finally murmurs, a confession near John’s ear. “I don’t care about age—“ his hand slides smoothly into John’s lap, giving his cock a gentle squeeze “—but it’s a fantasy. Caring for someone. Being trusted to take care of someone’s needs.” He gives John’s cock a firm rub with his thumb, and John arches slightly into it. “Whatever those may be,” he adds in a near-purr, squeezing hard at John’s thigh. 

“Ah,” John mumbles, losing the thread. He reaches for Jim’s hand, to guide it back to his crotch, but Jim just strokes teasingly light. 

“I like discipline,” Jim adds in John’s ear, a bare whisper. His hand drifts lower, cups John’s balls and then slowly starts to squeeze. “What do you think of that, Johnny?"

John closes his eyes and groans. “I must be fucking crazy,” he mutters. “I want you to hurt me.” His own hand grips Jim’s thigh, bracing himself. Jim laughs lightly in his ear.  

“I know you do, sweet thing,” Jim whispers, and squeezes so hard John sees stars, crying out. “I can know anything about you that I choose,” he adds as he relents, hand relaxing.

“You might—want to be afraid of that,” John mutters, catching his breath. “What you could find in my mind if you go digging."

“Mmm.” Jim squeezes again, not quite so hard, and blood pulses up to meet his hand, endorphins flooding John’s brain. “I hope so,” Jim whispers. “I hope it’s terrifying.” He sinks his teeth into John’s neck, a real merciless bite this time, and John kicks the floor and embraces the pain. He never even thinks to heal the marks as Jim leaves them on his skin.

~*~

There’s something that nags John about a man who comes into the clinic to have a deep cut on his thigh stitched up, a burly bloke with a neatly trimmed beard and tattooed biceps. Later, he asks Jim about it, and is surprised when he actually gets an answer.

“You’ve seen a photo, I assume,” Jim explains, slowly stirring a pan of fragrant sauce he’s got simmering on the hob. “Vasiliy Chmerinov, one of the untouchable leaders of a sex trafficking ring you came into contact with last March."

“Olga,” John murmurs, remembering the girl they’d helped and then feeling a jolt of anger. “Son of a bitch. What’s _he_ doing working for you?"

Jim responds with a slow smirk, his eyes still on the pan. “Turns out he can be _touched_ after all. I reckon you want him dead, but he's not fucking little girls anymore."

“How certain are you of that?” John asks, frowning as he hops up on a barstool. He understands that Jim’s business isn’t exactly ethical, but he’s not sure he can make himself comfortable with the idea of child sex offenders on Jim’s payroll. 

“Very. Chmerinov’s not the first bad apple I’ve hired. The ones I find distasteful, the ones I want to get out of the business, I deal with by killing two birds with one stone. They remember everything they’ve done, but they’re docile and they’re loyal. They work security, do odd jobs for me. Men like him, if they think about kids, they feel like someone’s taken an electrode to their bollocks. Unsurprisingly effective,” Jim smirks.

“Ah,” John thinks about it, can’t help but admire the idea. “How?” 

“A form of hypnosis. I use my magic to plant a permanent suggestion, essentially. I speak directly to the brain.” 

“Huh. That’s… quite efficient.” 

“I certainly think so.” Jim blows on the spoon a bit, then offers it to John, letting him sip at the lemony sauce. “It came to me when I read something about a hypnotist who tries to curb dangerous magical abilities.”  

John laughs. “Leave it to you to bend something anti-magic to your own magical devices. Not that I’m complaining.” 

“No no, Johnny,” Jim smiles, a little twisted. “You would never do that.” 

~*~

A few weeks after the trafficker, a young woman comes into the clinic with severe burns—self-inflicted, but unintentional, he learns with some gentle questioning. Moran’s with her, and he explains as much as John needs to know.

“Run-in with a patrol. She tried to fight back and got hit by an air Elemental.” 

John shakes his head, hissing through his teeth as he applies ointment to the burned skin. Normally, fire Elementals can’t suffer damage from their own fire, but a blast of magical air makes it less predictable. “Are you taking in all the magical strays now, then?” he teases, wrapping one of the girl’s arms in clean bandages. 

Sebastian smirks. “No, just you. But the boss has a team she’ll be a good fit for.”  

“I dun'even know who you are,” the girl mumbles distrustfully, and John gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile as he wipes clean a cut on her forehead where blood’s been smeared just into the twists of her hair.

“Well, I’m a doctor. And Sebastian’s a hired gun, but I find him much less scary than government agents in suits, myself,” he teases. She’s small, looks no older than sixteen, though that may just be her size. “Certainly more friendly to Elementals.” 

“You one of us, then?” she asks. “Never heard nobody else call us that.” 

“Yeah,” John smiles, moving to work on another large burn. “I didn’t much either, till I met Seb’s boss. But my family wasn’t Elemental. I’m John, by the way.” 

“Anna.” She frowns. “My da hates Elementals. Mum’s dead. Nobody’ll give me a job, either. But I’m not stupid enough to trust some man with a gun offering me one,” she adds, glaring at Sebastian. Unoffended, he laughs.

“Smart kid. You can leave if you like, once John fixes you up. But they’re going to be looking for you.” 

“I can hide.” 

“Maybe. Might be easier in a group, though. You’re not the only fire Elemental we know.” 

She narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Like who?” 

“Well, I’m not going to tell you that right off. Protection goes both ways, yeah? We can introduce you, though, if you’ll agree to a couple of things.” 

She snorts. “Tell me then, are these fire Elementals a bunch of rich white blokes armed like you are? Like I said—not stupid.” 

John laughs at that, too. “Kid’s got a point,” he says in a friendly tone, smiling at her as he applies some ointment. 

Sebastian scowls. “None of ‘em rich. Not all of ‘em white. No one expects you to trust us, but I reckon you don’t have many options. If you can keep quiet and agree not to attack everyone you meet on principle, I’ll introduce you to a couple of the people I’m talking about. If you want to walk, that’s fine too, but there’s a reward for your head, now, sorry to say.”  

She frowns, and looks a bit more genuinely frightened at that. John finishes a dressing and then puts his kit aside, addressing her with a friendly tone. “I know how you feel, at least a bit. I didn’t trust these blokes from Adam either, really, when they got me out of a tight spot. But the bad news is that once you run, they are looking for you, and they’ve got better ways to catch you than a patrol once your ‘case’ is escalated. I was on one of the patrols once.” 

She frowns. “Did you sign up?” 

John smirks. “Hardly. I was recruited. The recruiters are persuasive. I try not to lose sleep regretting it, though.”  

“Hmph.” She sits quietly a moment, then sighs. “I’ll agree to your terms. Not ‘cause I want to, mind.” 

“Noted.” Sebastian rolls his eyes. “We done here, doc?” 

“Yeah, but if at all possible, I want to follow up in a week. These are nasty enough, shouldn’t just be left alone.” 

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sebastian grunts, then leads her out of the room. John frowns as he packs up his kit. She’s too young for this kind of negotiation, but then, that’s the world they live in. If the government doesn’t discriminate based on age, neither can they. He’s reminded of a school-aged Jim and his dangerous antics, and he reminds himself that he only can have a very limited role in this fight, as much as he’s starting to develop an interest in the larger strategy. He swallows down the urge to find a way to taunt Mycroft Holmes and instead goes to the computer to check on the clinic’s inventory, stopping on the way to make himself a cup of tea.

~*~

After Anna’s follow-up appointment, John’s relatively certain she’s in the best possible hands, given the circumstances. Not least reassuring is the fact that she’s been allowed rest, wherever Jim’s network is putting her up, and she looks healthier even after a week, the burns healing well and her skin losing some of the sallow look of dehydration and malnourishment. Sebastian doesn’t give any clue as to what kind of work she’ll be doing, or whom she’s working with, but John’s not stupid, and when Jim’s in a good mood a few nights later, he decides to ask.

“Moran mentioned that Anna’s running with a group of other fire Elementals now,” he comments as they get ready for bed, watching Jim brush his teeth in the big bathroom mirror. “Any connection to the Sadie O’Connor story?” He meets Jim’s eyes in the mirror, and the criminal is smiling around his toothbrush, which is a good sign.

“You’re a clever boy, Johnny,” Jim admits after he spits, then bends over to rinse. John smooths a hand down his spine, over the curve of his arse.

“I wish there was a way to assure her safety,” John sighs. “I like her.” 

“You know there’s not. Not really. I can’t put everyone in a safehouse.” 

“Only the useless ones?” John can’t help it, but Jim doesn’t lash out in response, or coddle him.

“You miss your gun,” Jim murmurs, aligning their mouths and speaking against his lips. “I know it’s not the same, behind the front lines.” 

“I don’t need protection,” John argues, even as his hands press against Jim’s arse, the thin fabric of their pyjamas warm between their hips, and he grants Jim a kiss. “Not any more than any of them, at least. Probably less than some.” 

“Probably,” Jim agrees. “But life’s not fair. And I need you here.” There’s just enough of a pleading to his tone that John lets it drop, for now, licking his way into Jim’s mouth. At times, he remembers that Jim is probably a little desperate just like the rest of them, despite his resources and the relative safety he can give his home base.

It’s not nothing, either, that Sebastian takes him to a shooting range days a few days after their conversation, giving him a chance to hold a gun again even if it’s only aimed at two-dimensional targets. He tries out a couple of Sebastian’s toys, but spends most of the time dropping imaginary enemies with his familiar Sig Sauer pistol, letting some of the tension drain out of his shoulders as he focuses on the familiar rhythm of shot, kickback, and taking aim once more. 

~*~

Jim comes to bed late one night, slipping in next to John when he’s already been asleep for several hours. They don’t sleep together every night, and Jim doesn’t always announce when he’s planning on it, but John’s pleased to wake to a warm body snuggling up to his back, and he tugs Jim’s arm around him in greeting.

“Time’s it?” he mumbles, and Jim chuckles in return.

“Doesn’t matter.” He presses a kiss to John’s neck, his lips lingering for a moment just under John’s ear. “Something’s been niggling at me, Johnny."

“Yeah?” John asks, rolling over within the brace of Jim’s arm to face him in the dark. “What’s up?” 

“When you escaped your patrol… you didn’t use your energetic magic. No one was harmed, but you could’ve exercised finesse. You could’ve put them to sleep. You put yourself in much more danger instead, and you couldn’t have escaped on your own without it.” 

“Didn’t occur to me,” John admits honestly. “I was almost completely out of practice. I’ve never exactly used that part of my magic in combat, you know?” 

“Mm.” Jim kisses him, dropping the line of inquiry in favor of tracing a line down towards John’s sternum with his mouth. A seeming non-sequitur, he picks up another. “Why do you trust me, really? I _could_  be toying with you this entire time. I could be subtly manipulating your mind, inventing your attraction to me out of thin air. You have no way of knowing.”

John gives himself a moment to think of the most convincing response, his hand lifting to settle at Jim’s nape and play with the fine hairs there. Eventually he settles for honesty, the only way with Jim. “You’re right, I don’t. That’s what trust is, though. I think… I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t trust you at an incredibly deep level. But that’s not common for me, so I don’t know how to explain it.”

Jim growls a bit, lifting his head again and shoving John gently onto his back, climbing over him. “You trusted your fellow soldiers.”

“Of course I did. Trusted them with my life, part of the gig.” He reaches for Jim’s hips, gives them a squeeze. “I’m trusting you with the same thing. But you’re a person, not an institution. I trust _who_  you are in my gut. Don’t ask me why, but I know you.” Jim snarls a bit, and John thinks he’s going to argue, but stops him quickly, two fingers pressed to his lips. “Fuck with my mind, then. Do it intentionally. You mentioned that you use hypnosis with your men, the rotten eggs. Hypnotize me.” 

Jim’s eyes widen with something in between surprise and hunger. “You’re completely mad.” 

“No, I’m not.” John shifts his hands to grip Jim’s wrists, squeezing them once. “I’m sane and consenting. Hypnotize me. Make me do your will. I’m not telling you I’m fine with the risk as long as you don’t manipulate me at all. I’m telling you I’m fine with _everything_.” He’s not sure what else he can do to get through to Jim, knowing how difficult it is for the other man to see his innate magical abilities as anything other than a weapon, but regardless of what he’s said about his sanity, John’s just crazy enough to want to let Jim into his mind in this way. He wants to know what buttons his lover will push when he’s allowed to access his power of mental control within the context of pleasure. He’s almost certain Jim’s never been offered this before.

After a moment where the suggestion hangs thick in the air, their shared gaze never breaking, Jim suddenly slaps John’s hands away, shifts so that he’s the one gripping John’s wrists and pins them to the bed. “You fucking psycho,” he mutters, but his mouth is hard on John’s and the kiss Jim forces onto him is electric. He’s half-high by the time their mouths separate, Jim looming over him with a pure hunger in his eyes now.

“Look at me, John,” Jim purrs, honey-sweet, sitting up again where he straddles John’s hips. John has the vague thought, ‘are we starting this now?’ even as he holds Jim’s gaze obediently, his pulse hard in his wrists filling the ghost of Jim’s fingerprints. “Look into my eyes. You’re going to obey my commands,” he murmurs, calmly, and John feels a comfortable, heavy blankness filling his senses. He waits in patient anticipation of the next thing Jim will say, locked on his eyes, no other thoughts interfering as they normally would. It’s that unnatural blankness that makes him aware of his own state, but he can’t bring himself to concentrate on it. Jim’s mouth curves into a serpentine smile.

“You’re feeling very calm, and fully aware,” Jim continues. “But there’s a certain urgency starting to come to mind,” he adds, a finger on his lips as if in thought for a moment, even as an undefined prickle makes itself known at the back of John’s thoughts, a kind of unnamed anxiety. “Ah, yes. You very much want something in your mouth, John. But you cannot move from the bed to find something to satisfy that craving. You cannot sit up, no matter how… hard... you try.” 

And yes, as Jim says it, John finds that his mouth is very conspicuously empty, that he wants something filling its contours. He swallows and his lips part without conscious effort, but as he strains to move, his eyes tracing Jim’s body looking for something to suck on, he simply _cannot_. No matter how hard he clenches his abdomen, his arms, he cannot lift from the mattress. His eyes widen, confused—indeed, he can’t remember anything about how he got here, only that he _wants_. His mouth is woefully empty, and all he can see when he looks at Jim are things he would like to fill it—Jim’s tongue, Jim’s earlobe, even Jim’s chin or his nose are appealing now. He whines high in his throat, mouth open, body tensing with desire but waves of mental calm oddly washing over him whenever he starts to panic. He doesn’t know how long it is that he stays like this, whimpering and wanting, but eventually Jim relents and a finger penetrates his pleading orifice, settling on his tongue. 

There are words, soft confident instructions that must penetrate to his hindbrain, but John is too full of his desire, of the waves of pleasure he feels sucking at Jim’s index finger like he was born to do it. It doesn’t taste like a finger at all, but like the most indulgent of desserts, sweet and rich, and each time he sucks he feels a pulse of warm pleasure in his groin. He’s vaguely aware of words shaping that pleasure, affirming its existence as a steady rhythm that matches each deep pull of suction from his lips. Above him, Jim is firm and still, but John’s hips are free now to rock, shifting minutely under the other man’s weight. The tension that had held him in place is now restricted to his chest and his head, and his fingers grip the sheets as his hips rock, his tongue rubbing at Jim’s finger as he sucks. Each wave of pleasure feels deeper than the one before it, and soon John is riding that wave over its crest, his orgasm so intense that he whites out as it hits him. When consciousness returns, it’s a slow creep of awareness, words only gradually resolving into the English language, his mouth slack and his vision blurry.

“…and come back to me now, that’s a good pet. Rising up, feeling your body again, your thoughts returning to you. Back under your own control.” 

John blinks. Some time has obviously passed. He was wearing boxers, but he’s fully naked now. Jim, too, has divested himself of vest and pants, and is once again lying alongside John, facing him. It’s initially jarring, to realize that he has lost time, and he doesn’t know how much. But then his eyes adjust to the darkness and he focuses on Jim, looking a little nervous, stroking John’s cheek. He lets his expression melt into a smile. 

“Generous of you,” John teases. “I lend you my mind and you do _that_  with it.” It’s too dark to tell, but he thinks Jim might be blushing. 

“Well I was hardly going to demonstrate that I'd earned your trust by sending you out to kill a man.” His fingers trace John’s lips, along his jaw. “Was it good?” 

“Yeah,” John agrees. “That was… hot, actually. But was it intentional, to take my awareness away? I forgot that you were hypnotizing me after awhile.” 

“It was,” Jim agrees. “I thought it would be more pleasurable that way. Less... creepy.” 

“Next time,” John says without taking a moment to consider it. “Don’t. I want to be aware of you the entire time.” 

Jim doesn’t say anything, but if he holds John just a fraction tighter, John doesn’t complain. 

~*~

Later sessions take place in the daylight.

They’re not always sexy—sometimes Jim just has John do odd things to show that he’s not in control of his own body, makes him feel sensations that aren’t there or see hallucinations. After some time, John offers that Jim doesn’t have to warn him that he’s going to do it, and he admits only in part to himself that he _likes_  it, that he’s developing something of a kink. When Jim’s away on a trip to East Asia and John catches his masturbatory fantasies turning to images of Jim literally manipulating him like a marionette, pulling the strings in full Moriarty persona, he knows he’s fucked. But Moriarty is a part of Jim, and in truth, John isn’t sure as this relationship develops that he’d cut that part away if he could.

“I know that this turns you on, Johnny-boy,” Jim purrs one evening shortly after his return, trailing a finger along John’s naked body. He’s in a full suit, and John’s spread out on the leather sofa, one leg up on the back of it, spread wide and drooling. In his mind, he’s certain that Sebastian is going to walk in any minute and see him like this. He’s fully aware that the idea has been planted—Jim always keeps him aware of the hypnosis itself, after the first session—but he can’t shake it. He shivers and moans as Jim toys almost clinically with his flaccid cock, lifting it and letting it flop back down against his testicles. He’s been ordered not to get hard, and so he doesn’t. Jim’s staring at him like he wants to dissect him on a cold metal table, and John just might let him.

“You’re not hard, but my mind control doesn’t normally work this way,” Jim muses softly. “You wouldn’t _feel_  hard. You wouldn’t feel aroused. But your body couldn’t help its physiological response. You’re not even doing it consciously, as I’m speaking directly to your subconscious like this. I can control—” and at this he traces around the open bow of John’s mouth with his fingers, his expression awed, even as a thin trail of saliva trickles out of the corner of John’s mouth. “—everything about you, even your abilities, through your subconscious. You don’t even _know_  that you’re doing it, but you’re manifesting physical results when I tell you to feel sensation. You’ve dropped all the barriers to your magic.” 

And then Jim breaks off with a wide grin. “You dirty, dirty boy. You _want_ this. I’ll have to be more careful in the future, more specific, wouldn’t want to cause you undue harm, but… _oh_ , the possibilities!” He claps his hands together, eyes manic with glee, and then just as abruptly his stare goes harsh, exacting. “Relax for me, Johnny boy. _Open_ ,” he orders, wiping a finger through the puddle of drool that’s gathered on the sofa and then pressing his fingertip to John’s arsehole. Where there would normally be resistance, John indeed finds that he’s relaxing, letting Jim in. He can’t even make himself do that normally with his powers, consciously, and a certain awe comes to him even in hypnotic trance. But the look in Jim’s eye is more demanding than his own fascination, and he focuses on it, on the wickedness of the man’s grin as he penetrates with three fingers now at once. “Nice and relaxed. Stretch that hole for me, boy.” John hasn’t been commanded not to make noise, only to keep his mouth slack and open, so he groans as he feels his body melt, tension leaving the muscles around Jim’s fingers. “I’ve let you think freely tonight, haven’t I? So tell me what you’re thinking, Johnny.” 

“I like this,” John mumbles, the words leaving his mouth without permission, tumbling on top of one another at the order. “I want you to control everything about me, I want to be your puppet your slave I’ve thought about this so many times but secret always secret…” John gasps for air, aware that he’s divulging things he might not have meant to, but unable to stop himself. “I want to be your tool, it turns me on to know how you’re using me, my own body against me, but I can’t do anything about it don’t want to do anything about it I’d kill for you I would—“ He wants to say more, but Jim cuts him off with a hard kiss, licking away the spit from his mouth, thrusting his fingers directly against John’s prostate until he’s swallowing howls. Jim doesn’t stop kissing him, doesn’t let him speak anymore during the session, just unzips and fucks up into him with his body yielding around Jim’s cock as Jim’s tongue drives into his mouth. He feels shattered, like Jim’s reaching inside him with every probing knife’s blade tentacle of magic he has at his command and demanding a response, and John can’t help but answer--

Yes. Yes, _yes_.

~*~

“Your powers are… stronger than I even realized,” Jim admits, holding a glass of water to John’s lips afterwards. He looks almost sheepish. 

John takes a few sips and then shrugs, snuggling into him. “Well… you and me both.” 

“Right.” Jim frowns, focuses on the floor.

“Hey. I’m not upset. Just… surprised.” John tilts his head, kisses Jim’s jaw. “I’ve always had an unhealthy thing for control,” he admits, his voice rough. It’s much harder now, when he’s in full control of his mental faculties, and he can’t meet Jim’s eye. “I don’t… I wouldn’t be telling you this, but given the circumstances… it was a turn-on far before I ever met you, James. I’ve never exactly known how to handle it.” 

“I’m pretty sure there are healthier ways,” Jim mutters, self-deprecating as always. John presses a hand firm over his chest, over his heart.

“I’m not.” 

They sit quietly for a while, breathing together, and eventually the tension drains out of Jim’s form. John can feel it, and he snuggles up even closer, fitting their bodies together. “I fantasize about it,” he murmurs in Jim’s ear, the position hiding his face. “You know I can’t lie when you ask me questions. You didn’t force any false answers into me. I fantasize about crazy predicaments where I have no choice, where I don’t have to make decisions or take the lead because I’ve had that right taken forcibly away from me. I used to always dream about being on my knees, and then fucking hate myself for it.” His hand drifts to Jim’s thigh, squeezes there. “Honest truth is, you make me hate myself a little less.” 

He’ll let Jim decide how to handle that.

~*~

“Doctor,” Moran calls out one morning, early, when John’s asleep in Jim’s bed but Jim isn’t. “Holmes is on a secure line for you downstairs. Can you take it?” 

“Christ. Yeah, give me a minute!” John calls back, shoving the sheets back and rubbing the sleep from his eyes before he sits up and tugs a pair of joggers on over his pants. He legs it down the stairs, but Sherlock still greets him with exasperation in his voice when he makes it to the phone.

“What took you so long?” 

“I was _sleeping_ , Sherlock.” He can’t help a fond smile. As much as he’s settled into a routine as a fugitive, he’s missed the detective, in a lot of ways. “You know, like normal people do?” 

Sherlock scoffs. “You’re hardly normal. If you were normal, it’d be much easier to get the government to stand down.” 

“No luck, then, I assume.” 

“None. Mycroft isn’t willing to budge on his terms. You show your face or you’re considered hostile. John… if they find you, and I have no doubt they _will_ , eventually, they’ll shoot you on sight. Do you honestly trust Moriarty to protect you if it comes to that?”  

“At this point? Yeah. I do.” 

“He’s not reliable, John. His entire network is built on lies… manipulation. I’m surprised you’re allowed to communicate with me, but I have to assume it’s a ruse of some kind. He lets you believe that he has some measure of a heart, and then…” 

“Stop it, Sherlock.” John’s free hand clenches into a fist, and he lets out a puff of air. “Not everyone has to be a fairytale villain. Jim isn’t trying to harm me.” 

“ _Jim_ is it?” Sherlock scoffs. “What are you not telling me?"

“That you’re a pompous arse, but I can fix that.” 

“Dull, John. Insults to disguise something you're trying to hide from me.... you empathise with him beyond his role of your protector... you've become _friends_ even... I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, given your need for excitement and the obvious hero complex. You and him against the rest of the world, it's a potent cocktail, you can't have me for the time being so you've found the next best..."

"Sherlock, I swear to God!" John groans. "Does every bloody thing have to be about you?"

There's a brief pause before Sherlock speaks. "Of course not, John. But this is you we're talking about. And I'm the most interesting thing to ever happen to you, so... of course it is."

"God, you utter... _prat._ Ring when you have something useful," John says before hanging up the phone. He swears Moran's hiding a smile when he hands it back to him.

~*~

The first time John finds the link, it’s under the most mundane circumstances. He wakes alone, bleary, and his first thought is to wonder where Jim is. Before he’s even completed that thought, he feels a kind of pulse under his skin, a tugging that is undeniably physical. _What the…?_

Rising to his feet, John glances around the bedroom, brow furrowed, and thinks about Jim again, deliberately this time. The tug repeats itself, localized vaguely underneath his chest. It’s not just instinct, but an actual pull as if his organs are pressing against his skin. He really _hopes_  that’s not what’s going on. Concerned, he heads towards the stairs, intending to find Jim and tell him what’s going on, and then he finds that the tug has—shifted directions, is the best he can evaluate it, as if it’s coming from a slightly different origin point. As he nears the stairs, the feeling is more insistent, pushing inward and down now instead of pulling out, as if someone is putting pressure on his chest. He frowns, hurrying down the stairs, and then makes a U-turn at the bottom when the feeling reverses again. Slowly, he’s starting to have an idea.

“Jim?” he calls out, walking through the house with some urgency. There’s no response, but the feeling inside his ribs continues, directing him forwards. When he reaches Jim’s study, actually sees his partner—working on a laptop, facing the door, with bulky headphones blocking his ears—the feeling abruptly vanishes. “Jim,” he repeats, waving his hand until Jim looks up at the movement and removes the headphones.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Jim grins. “Sleep all right?"

“Yeah. Uh… can you talk for a second? I just found something weird."

Jim frowns, closing his computer and putting it aside. “Weird how?” 

“Weird… magic, I assume. Almost like a new ability but… that’s not possible at my age, is it?” 

Jim turns thoughtful. “Not precisely. But abilities can be latent, if you don’t know how to access them. What happened?”  

“I just… thought about you, when I woke up. I wondered where you were. And I got this… twitch, sort of. This feeling in my body, like a magnet or something. Sort of like an instinct but actually physical, a pushing feeling at my chest and my stomach. It led me right to you.” 

Jim stares at him for a long moment, and then his face falls. “Shite. I’m sorry, Johnny.” 

“What? Why?”  

“Because I think I put that there,” Jim admits, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“You… think you did?” John frowns, stepping closer, resting a calming hand on the back of Jim’s head, thumb rubbing against his neck. “You don’t know?” 

“The other night, when we were… playing,” Jim explains with the sardonic smile he often uses when he’s being self-deprecating. “I had the strongest desire to leave something of myself there, inside of you. I wanted an unbreakable link between us. I didn’t think it was actually possible.” 

“Oh.” John’s voice is soft, his hand continuing to soothe as he massages at Jim’s neck. “Wow. Well… it doesn’t seem harmful. It’s just like an odd sort of compass.” 

“Yeah, a compass to _me_ ,” Jim snarks. “Who knows what else I’ve done to you?” 

“I… doubt anything bad,” John ventures. “I mean… you weren’t thinking negative thoughts when it happened. You wanted to link us? Maybe that’s what you did. Like a hypnotic suggestion.” 

“A hypnotic suggestion that gives you gut pain?” Jim sounds skeptical. John can’t help but smile.

“It’s not like that. It doesn’t hurt, really,” John reasons, carding his fingers through Jim’s hair. “And I only felt it when I thought about you, where you were. It seems like I can control it. Besides, the physical part, that’s almost certainly me.” 

“Likely,” Jim agrees. “I can’t create physical manifestations like that. But you just… changed the nature of my poison.” He pulls away from John’s hands, rolling his chair back. “I could desire to harm you. And I _would_.” 

“Maybe. We’ve talked about this, though,” John points out, exasperated. “You don’t get to decide what I want. What if I _want_  you inside me?” he insists, pushing Jim’s chair to roll all the way back against the wall and then following it, lodging a knee in next to Jim’s thigh. “I want to figure out what this is,” he explains, fisting a hand in Jim’s hair, their mouths nearly touching. “I don’t want to abandon you, and you can’t get rid of me so easily.”  

Jim snarls in response, but he doesn’t fight, exactly, just lifts his mouth to John’s in a biting kiss, hands pressing at either side of John’s neck. The pressure on his carotids makes him a little lightheaded, but he persists, lowering his weight into Jim’s lap. Once the madman’s tired himself out kissing like his life depends on it, he relaxes into a loose kind of hug, holding John close.

“All right?”  

“For a given definition,” Jim parries. “You lunatic.” 

“Says the pot to the kettle,” John smiles, and lifts up a bit to kiss Jim’s forehead. “Get back to work. I’ll let you know if I notice anything else.” 

“Promise?” 

“Promise,” John agrees, letting him go with one lingering parting kiss.

~*~

“This is getting ridiculous,” John sighs, twirling the cord of the secure landline’s headset between his fingers. Jim’s on another trip, but this time it’s been extended several times, until they haven’t seen each other in weeks. “Do they really need you in person?” 

“Unfortunately,” Jim agrees. John can hear the strain and exhaustion in his voice. “If I could come home sooner by murdering a few people, I’d be tempted. But this situation requires… finesse.” 

John rolls his eyes and decides not to rise to the bait. When he thinks of Jim, he can feel a faint but present tug in his upper abdomen, and it’s undeniably comforting. He didn’t think there would be an application for this newfound ability so quickly, but it comes in handy as a reassurance.

“I know,” John sighs after a long pause, and then his thoughts turn slightly more naughty. “It’s just that… I miss you, Daddy.”  

Jim’s breath hitches. “ _Wicked_ ,” he breathes over the connection, sounding delighted. “You’re incorrigibly wicked, pet.” 

“I’m bored. Tell me about something other than negotiations and politics.” 

“Mmm. Shall I tell you about what I’m going to do to you the second I come home?” 

“You could do it to me now,” John suggests, his penchant for danger triggering a sudden idea. “You could hypnotize me. With your voice. I think you could.” 

“ _No_.” He’s surprised by the ferocity of Jim’s response. “Out of the question.” There’s a few moments of silence before he elaborates. “I own you, Johnny,” Jim murmurs. “And I am very deliberate with my things. I won’t fuck with your mind when I can’t be there to control _everything_.”

It’s protective, but it’s also kind of hot, and John pops his fly open, slips his hand into his trousers. “All right. Tell me, then.”

“Like I said,” Jim replies, a smirk audible in his tone. “I own you. I don’t need magic to exercise my authority. Do you like that, pet?”  

“You know the answer to that question.” 

“I do. But I want you to tell Daddy why it makes you hard, slut. Unless you want me to hang up on you and have Sebastian come in here and suck me.” 

John inhales sharply. “You wouldn’t. _He_  wouldn’t.” 

“Wouldn’t he?”  

John frowns. “No. But don’t hang up.” 

“No,” Jim purrs. “Go on. Tell me.” 

“Why it makes me hard?” John hesitates. “Because… fuck it. I don’t have anything to lose. I got tired of being careful.” 

“Is it freeing, then? Being owned?”  

“Yeah,” John agrees. “It’s… a fucking ancient fantasy. And it’s real. Which I don’t completely know what to do with.” 

“But you crave it anyway. You deserve it,” Jim purrs, more than half “Moriarty” now but still full of praise. “You’re a good boy, Johnny. You ought to have your fantasies come true.”  

John laughs and pulls his hand out of his pants to lick his palm. “Not just _my_ fantasies. You like being in control.” 

“I’m always in control,” Jim counters. “You’re more than that.”

“Because I want it?”

“Because you are who you are, pet. _And_  because you want it. Now shall I tell you what I'm going to do when I get my hands on you?” 

"Yeah," John agrees, his hand settling on his cock again and holding it gently, his movements slow and lazy. "Tell me."

"I don't think I'll let you beg. I think I'll start fucking your mouth with my tongue before you can tell me what you want from me. Maybe I'll root around in your brain a bit and see what you've been fantasizing about lately."  

John coughs around a laugh. "It'll be pretty predictable."

"That's all right. I like seeing how your mind works firsthand... there's something about feeling something just the way you feel it, all the little tendrils of shame that wind around your guilty pleasures..." John can hear Jim suck in a breath, and his hand tightens around a few quick strokes. "I revel in the details, Johnny. I'd love to hold you immobile up against a wall while I fuck your brain."

John groans lightly, starts stroking himself at a more consistent pace. "Yeah. Please."

"Mmm. What else could I do with you, sweetheart? I have lots of ideas...you know, it's too bad you don't have your combat boots anymore."

"Sorry?"

"I have this image in my head of you on your knees, naked except for your boots, laced and then tied to your wrists behind your back, and your dogtags, around your neck and then twisted around your cock. I think the head's fat enough when you're turned on for the chain to stay if I did it right, but you'd need to stay curled forward enough that those laces would bite like a bitch, and if you let the chain slip off I wouldn't let you come. I think I'd like to watch you struggle."

"Oh," John replies, breathy and not quite sure what to say.

"Elegant, isn't it? And my favorite part is, I wouldn't have to worry about your wrists, since you could heal any damage yourself, Doctor. You're a sadist's dream."

"I'm... something," John mutters, still thinking about Jim's promise of a brain fuck. "I wish you were here. So I could suck you right now."

"Mm, I know you do. Greedy boy. I do love to watch you suck. I'm thinking of putting you under with a suggestion that makes you so cock-hungry you can't keep your mouth closed and forget about how to protect your own throat, just force yourself down on me drooling and choking and sniffling like a whore. What do you think of that, sweetheart?"

"Fuck... Jim, I'm gonna come."

"No you're not," Jim replies, his voice dropping in a sharp instant to something not to be fucked with, pure Moriarty. "You're going to keep moving your hand on your cock, but you're not going to shoot until you ask nicely." 

"I... fuck," John groans, trying to pull his brain up to a place where he can remember what to say instead of just conjuring images of Jim feeding John his cock and laughing as he drools and chokes. "Please, Daddy. Please let me come now."

"Hmm. No. Wait. Don't you fucking dare, my pet."

"Daddy... fuck, Daddy, please."

"That's my cock you have your hand on right now. That's my personal property, and everyone who's anyone knows that you do _not_ misuse my personal property. Is that understood, Johnny-boy?" 

"Yes, yes, Daddy, but _please_ ," John whines, breathing so hard he's in danger of hyperventilation. The line is terrifyingly silent for ten, fifteen terrifying seconds, and then Moriarty's voice finally interjects.

"Come, bitch."

John's so relieved, he actually cries.

~*~

It's highly unusual to find Jim in the basement gym--usually Moran's the one down there if John comes down the stairs to work out and finds the lights on. He's not doing anything as mundane as lifting weights, either, still dressed in a work shirt and trousers though John spots his tie draped over a weight rack and notices he's barefoot. There's a target at the far end of the space, and Jim's standing about six meters away, throwing knives at it. John just watches from the landing, observing how Jim plants his feet precisely and lobs each knife across the space so that it goes flipping towards the target, the knives landing in a neat row from left to right and evenly spaced. John's eyebrows go up, but out of self-preservation he doesn't speak until Jim's out of weapons.

"So Sebastian wasn't lying when he said you were good with a knife." Jim turns as John takes the last six steps down, and his grin is a bit sinister.

"I needed to work off some steam. Fair warning, it's not all worked off."

"I'll take my chances," John replies, passing Jim and going to the target instead, tugging two of the knives out. Feeling vaguely reckless, he tosses them both to Jim in a gentle underhand, and sure enough his lover catches both by the handles. Grabbing the next two, John takes a closer look. "Nice blades."

"Mm," Jim stalks closer, presses his open mouth against John's, and the kiss is slow and dirty enough that John doesn't notice one of the knives creeping up to his throat. "Still think so?" Jim asks, holding the sharp blade just under John's Adam's apple.

"I feel my appreciation growing," John murmurs, careful not to move much when he speaks. 

"I don't think that's appreciation, honey," Jim smirks. He steps in with one leg tight between John's thighs, and at the same time jerks his other arm to throw the second knife sideways into the target, blind. Still armed, John's just ballsy enough to raise one hand of his own to counter Moriarty's movements, but he loses the knife in a quick grab to his wrist and then he's being jerked around, the other knife yanked from his grip as he falls to his knees and miraculously doesn't land on either of the blades he just dropped. He lifts a hand to his neck and finds a thin trickle of blood there, just a scrape. Kneeling behind him, Jim tugs his arm violently back and sucks at the two blood-smeared fingers, hard cock forced up against John's arse. 

"You should know not to fuck with me when I'm angry," Jim warns in his ear after letting his fingers loose. "You'll start to look like prey." 

"Maybe I like you predatory," John returns. "Remember the kind of shit you said on the phone when you were away? I was hoping you were serious."

"Oh," Jim says as he yanks John's trackies down past his hips. "I was." One arm braces across John's chest then, while the knife John thought he'd dropped comes around to lift John's cock, not quite hard yet but full with anticipation. He hisses in a breath, the cool of the blade holding up the weight of his cock just the tiniest movement away from slicing through blood-engorged tissue. 

"Scared?" Jim asks, still rutting slowly into John's arse, which he tenses in a valiant effort to keep his damn dick still. John nods. "Good," Jim groans, his voice thick and dirty.

"Daddy," John whispers, adrenaline coursing through his veins as his magical ability to heal doesn't turn off his instinctive reaction to _panic_  at the risk of injury to his sensitive bits. "Please. Don't cut me." 

"Oh," Jim pants. "Not an option. If you want to be good, pick another spot."

"Um," John mumbles, trying to think of an alternative that might be sufficiently appealing to Jim in this hyped-up violent state when suddenly there's a loud voice coming from the stairwell. 

"Boss! I need you to..."  

Before John can really register what's happening or try to cover himself, Jim's yanked the knife down and safely away from John's penis and has thrown the damn thing at Moran, who fortunately has very quick reflexes. The knife sticks in the drywall behind where Moran had been, and they hear the thump of his footsteps ascending the stairs just after. John, on the other hand, finds himself shoved down onto the gym mat, his face pressed against the grey surface and Jim’s weight pinning him in place.

"Next time I'll cut you," Jim snarls, pushing his dick between John's thighs and fucking him there, "and use your fucking blood as lube. Goddamn Moran," he grunts, hand slipping under John to grip his throat. 

"Daddy," he whispers plaintively with what little air he can access. Jim's thrusts are quick and erratic, and as John's vision goes hazy he reasons that at least it should be over soon.

~*~

"John. Johnny boy. Wake up, sweetheart," Jim whispers, gently squeezing his shoulders. When he comes to, John feels a little loopy, but quickly realizes he blacked out, and groans a bit as he tries to move, wet thighs slipping against each other.

"Fuck," John mutters, letting Jim help him roll over but not bothering to pull his trackies up. "What was that?"

"Fucking Holmes. He's closing in."

John frowns and gives Jim's hip a light rub. "Mycroft?"

"The one and only. Sorry. I just...wanted to _maim_ something. You got in the way."

"Fairly deliberately, yeah," John grins. "I was poking at you on purpose, don't worry about it. That last trip sucked for my sex life."

Jim snorts. "You're such a slut. Should I buy you a nice vibrator for next time?"

"Stick with the phone sex," John suggests, pushing up to a sitting position and frowning at the floor. "I got blood on the mats."

"They can be cleaned," Jim says, and leans in to lick a stripe of John's throat. The cut stings, but he doesn't hate it. "Are you going to heal that?"

"Do you want me to?" 

"No." Jim's eyes go dark for another second. "Leave it."

John smiles. "Yes, sir. Remind me to invite you the next time I'm in a knife fight, by the way."

Jim rolls his eyes, evidently back in good humor.

 

  
_So I run to the river, it was boilin’,_ _I run to the sea, it was boilin'_

_I run to the sea, it was boilin’,_ _All ‘long dem day_


End file.
